LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



AR 17 1885 



ICIMEMNON'S DAUXHTER. 



A POEM 



BY 



DENTON J. SNIDER, 

Author of "A Walk in Hellas^' ''Delphic Days," etc. 



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BOSTON: ^' ^ ^.Jimf^ 



James E. Osgood & Co., 
1885. 



*r -iv, ... 









Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1885, 

by Denton J. Snider, in the Office of the 

Librarian at "Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS. 



Canto I— IPHIGENIA AT MYCENAE. 

The Loves. 

Canto II— IPHIGENIA AT AULIS.— 

The Sacrifice. 

Canto HI.— IPHIGENIA AT AULIS.— 

The Mission. 

Canto IV.— IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 
The Keturn. 



INSCRIBED 

To mine own only daughter, still young, but old 
enough to be deeply sympathetic with this story of 
Agamemnon's daughter, and often recalled, between 
lines, in strong compassion for the father by the 

FATHER. 



CANTO 1. 



IPHIGENIA AT MYCENAE. 



IT was a golden day around tlie towers 
Of rich Mycenae with her crown of stone ; 
The Spring danced up the hill with lap of flowers, 
Which she through all the blooming plain had strown; 
The fragrant wind did flute his sweetest tone 
Amid the bending branches of the tree; 

On every grassy plot Love built a throne, 
The time was full of Heaven's minstrelsy. 



4 AGA3IEMN0N'S DArGHTER. 

II. 

Around the youthful city's swelling breast 

Was clravf n a wall, a moveless rocky band, 
Whose heavy clasp her heart within had pressed, 

Without had kept each wanton, lustful hand; 

Still every breeze strevred kisses through the land, 
And tender speechless missives on theii* way 

Fell down the air, by Aphrodite fanned. 
And all declared it was a golden day. 

III. 
Then broke upon the sight a pageant new 

Across the graintields by the sunlit sea, 
Where many a sail swan- winged over the blue 

Far-quivering main was floating airily; 

That pageant soon a troop was seen to be, 
Swim^ming upon the golden stream of morn; 

A youthful troop of argent chivahy, 
With blazons stransfe bedi^'ht and Orient-born. 



CANTO I. »' 

IV. 

Paris of Troy the foremost lord was liigiit, 
The faii-est youth of all the Trojan land, 

W'ithm his face he bore a sunrise bright, 

The curls danced round his neck in many a strand, 
A feathery touch slept in his tender hand, 

Love's smiles played from his lips into his eye 
Which coldly thence its charmed object scanned, 

Could sing to harp sweet strains of poesy. 

V. 

And vdth him many Trojan gallants came 

With lightsome heads and lively hearts, save one 
Who Antenorides was called by name, 

Of noble father the still nobler son; 

He left in Troy a dame whom he had won, 
^^^^o unto him, as he to her, was true ; 

But his great love could never sadness shun, 
For his deep soul presaged the day of rue. 



6 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

VI. 

The town came forth to see that troop of kings 

In shining pomp and gTand festivity; 
The altars smoked with fragrant offeiings, 

And through the streets processions moved in glee, 

Chariots dashed down the hill into the lea, 
The merry stream poured out the Lion's Gate, 

Thrown open was old Atreus' treasury, 
And ancient fanes shone forth in golden state. 

vn. 
King Agamemnon moved with gracious cheer, 

He was a lordly man, not old, not young ; 
His word was always musical to hear, 

A gold-bossed scepter in his hand he swung. 

While honeyed speech dropped from his fluent to ngue 
"Pour out thy heart with us, oh noble guest, 

This stay of thine shall not remain unsung. 
Not all of ours be thine, but aU our best. 



CANTO I. 

vni. 
<'Thy glorious name before thee crossed tlie sea, 

Thy gracious form, the sweetness of thy word; 
Friends with the Trojan folk I fain would be, 

And knit a bond whereof no soul has heard; 

Deep in my heart to-day I am bestirred 
To break the bamer of yon blue salt flood; 

See there ! above us wheels the favoring bird 
To join all Hellenes in one brotherhood." 

IX. 

A look he cast upon his daughter fair, 

Iphigenia, stainless at his side; 
The moment Paris bent his glances there, 

She hung her head, her eyes to eai-th she tied, 

The stranger's look she could not well abide; 
She turned away and huiTied through the crowd, 

For in some secret nook she thought to hide. 
Far from the festival and tumult loud. 



8 AGAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

X. 

Back of the court slie had a garden seat, 

AVhere she had nourished many a loving flower; 

These were her friends whom daily she would meet 
To hold mute converse for the passing hour, 
And over them she held a gentle power; 

Oft would they seem to bloom her futui'e ways, 
Of i)ain and pleasure all the motley shower, 

The silent destiny in f aii'est days. 

XI. 

To his high palace Agamemnon sped. 

He set before his guests a banquet rare. 
The wine soon flashed each face with sunsets red, 

The coui-tly tongues were cloyed with dainty fare; 

Many an Argive chieftain too was there. 
Out high-hilled cities of the land they came, 

And mingled with the Trojans killing care, 
And much they honored the gTeat Prince's name. 



CANTO I. 

XII. 

Paris led oif in festive merriment, 

His Trojans well the beaded cup could tease; 
Their song of wine with that of women blent 

Eevealed the heart in all its hid degrees; 

But other stra-ins heard Antenorides, 
As he sat by and the mad revel saw; 

For in the vnne he could behold the lees, 
And could in license read a-venging law. 

XIII. 

Yet one relief he had of suffering, 
A single bliss in Hellas he could find. 

It was to see the daughter of the king, 
She raised to life vatliin his boding mind 
The image of the Love he left behind, 

And darted through him gleams of happiness 
For one sweet hour; but then again he pined. 

And saw his lady pallid in distress. 



10 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XIV. 

A bard there was who in the palace sang, 
An aged holy man who much had seen; 

Of sorrow he had known the deepest pang, 
Of joy he felt the finest ropture, keen 
Within his soul full strung; at Thebes had been 

Twice with the seven Ai^give chiefs, who sought 
By the pure fire to make that city clean 

Of its Cadmeian taint from Asia brought. 

XV. 

Defeat and victory had been his life, 
Once he had lost at Thebes his chieftains all; 

Then he beheld renewed the deadly strife, 
And the proud town one heap of ashes fall, 
Of changeful destiny he was the thrall. 

His heart became a harp of many strings 

Which Fate would strike to make her madrigal, 

Whence sparkles fell of all melodious things. 



CANTO L 11 

XVI. 

Tlie Muses gave to liim a voice divine 

The famous deed lieroical to sing; 
He put a Grecian soul in every line, 

Which all the world to harmony did bring. 

And see its image in the smallest thing; 
But vrhat his people felt, he saw with eyes, 

He flew before them high on eagle's wing, 
Discerned the speck across the furthest skies. 

XVII. 

He felt the struggle coming on afar, 

The burden of his song was Zeus's best; 

He knew that in the Trojan lay the war 
'WTiich Greek must end by voyages unblcst, 
And by a ten years' time of wild unrest; 

That bard — he was a man born into aU, 

His glance he threw behind the mountain crest, 

Where he the Future saw and heard it caU. 



1 2 AGAMEMNON'S DA VGHTEB. 

XVIII. 

To Agamemnon now these words lie spake : 

"I bear to tliee my heavy thought, oh king; 
To-day I fear thou wilt thj'self unmake 

By thy too va,st ambitious reckoning; 

Across the seas thy fancy skims its wing, 
Y/hile one now walks thy court in silent quest 

The jewel of our Greece to Troy to bring; 
That man beware, beware the fateful guest. 

XIX. 

"I saw him in my dazzled dream last night 

Fulfil the perfect circle of his deed; 
What is akeady done, was but a mite, 

A little point flashed with a burning glede; 

More swiftly ran the point than any steed 
As it sped round to what was next to be; 

The Future sHd into my vision, freed 
From that dark hije which is Time's boundary. 



CANTO L 13 

XX. 

"Higli over Troy tliafc point a blaze became, 

It lit and flai-ed on Paris' pregnant sail, 
The raving Hellespont upsprang in flame, 

Outburning all Jove's lightning and the gale; 

Into Mycenae swept the fiery trail, 
Then back it streamed with tenfold passion dire ; 

The sea-foam, Aj)hrodite's mother pale. 
Flamed round the ship and set the waves on fire. 

XXI. 

"In his returning ship I saw to be 

What brings to sons of men the most delight, 
The highest prize of lofty minstrelsy, 

Tho soul that thrills into the sense of sight, 

A look that seems to set the world in light; 
Then many warriors follow on the wave. 

They fill a plain and soon begin a fight 
The stolen prize of their own land to save." 



14 A GAMEMNON 'S DA VGHTER. 

XXII. 

To him replies then Agamemnon proud: 

"Great now in 'Hellas is m}^ sovereign power! 

Of men to serve I cannot count the crowd, 
Of islands of the sea I have the flower, 
Beneath this scepter wild Arcadians cower. 

The Isthmus joins two mighty seas for me. 
Two continents it joins in one high tower 

Which shows me forth to nile all Barbary. 

XXIII. 

"But now I bend my look across the sea. 
This day to Asia I shall reach my hand. 

And of Troy's citadel the taker be. 

And towns and fields until the Phrygian land, 
By that which I have in my bosom planned; 

To Priam's son I shall my daughter wed, 
Troy and Mycenae shall together stand, 

Or shall together lie with cities dead." 



CANTO I. 15 

XXIV. 

Foitlirigiit tlie father souglit that garden spot, 
His daughter's mind in gentle wise to test, 

He found her deep within a darksome grot, 
"Wliere but a single sunbeam, doubly blest 
Played down her forehead and her lips caressed: 

"Why hast thou fled away beyond my call ? 
Fill up the festal day with thy full zest. 

Prince Paris now awaits thee in the hall." 

XXV. 

Iphigenia was a maiden rare, 

Upon the world she gazed with deep blue eyes. 
Wherein it melted to a vision fair. 

And rose with music sweet unto the skies. 

As Earth might turn a sudden Paradise; 
It was her gift to change the small and bad 

Into a boundless world of charities, 
Yet in her glance a suffering she had. 



1^ AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTEB. 

XXVI. 

Of the rich summer time she was the flov/er 
That dwells beside the wild, far-flashing sea; 

To look beyond she had a subtle power, 
A gleam she threw into infinity 
And there another world could plainly see; 

She looked upon a man without a motion, 
Born in her glance was aU he was to be, 

His hidden genius on its hidden ocean. 

xx\^i. 
Gentle the maiden spoke her word, but strong: 

"The stranger who has come from Troy to-day- 
Father, I would not do him any wrong. 

But when I think of him, I cannot pray 

To purest Artemis who is my stay; 
His glances light the air but to cajole, 

To heart he never will a heai-t repay. 
Cannot believe he loves one human soul." 



CANTO L 17 

XXVIIL 

Tlie fatlier qiienclied his angry flush, and smiled: 
*'0h let no more the winds foreboding sigh 

Through all thy young and sunny days, my child ! 
Let minutes now be mad, and w^ildly fly 
Round thee and Paris mid our revelry. 

S"ot often such a day shines on our towers ! 
The ancient Sun upon our stones doth lie, 

And pours the cit}^ full of golden hours." 

XXIX. 

He turned because he heard the trumpet blare 

Hui-iying to his ear leap after leap, 
As if a war steed galloped through the air, 

Bearing a message o'er a mountain steep, 

To rouse the soldier on his guard asleep; 
The king in haste turned back to find his guest. 

But he could catch a word that he should keep, 
A woful word torn out his daughter's breast: 



18 A GAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

XXX. 

"I feel my foe lias come and I shall reap 
The harvest ripe which he this day will sow; 

For deed of his I long shall have to weep, 
As Ida's maids now melt the mountain snow 
With tears for his deep wrongs: I shall not go 

With him to Troy; oh let me die forlorn 

In Greece ! To me and mine he is the foe, 

And I proclaim, the foe to Time unborn." 

XXXI. 

There stands high up above the town a fane 

Whose marble front peeps out the thicket gxeen, 

And eveiy stone a softened tint hath ta'en, 
Purer than any pearl was ever seen, 
Washed in the waters of an ocean clean ; 

The leaflets flutter noiseless round the side, 
The tree-tops to the roof do fondly lean, 

The jewel of the wood within to hide. 



CANTO L 19 

XXXII. 

The timid deer spoi-ts there without alarm, 
The wary bird can there no trapper fear, 

It was a spot where man dared do no harm, 
Peace reign eth in that wood the entire year, 
The fountains modest joy one scarce will heai*, 

As it wells out beneath a root of might. 
And trails in crystal pure a leaflet sere, 

Or paints a tender stain on pebble white. 

xxxni. 
In secret soon the maiden thither fled, 

Following the transparent happy rill, 
That to the fane up in the greenwood led 

Along a channel sweet with many a triU, 

Whereby she moved through music up the hill; 
A pretty fawn she saw within a grot 

To slake its thirst beside the forest still, 
Then pass before her to the sacred spot. 



20 AGAMEMNON 'S DA UGHTER, 

XXXIV. 

It was a pretty dappled timid thing 

That trembled to its silvery sj^ots of hair, 
Then faded from the margent of the s^Dring, 

As if it saw within the waters there 

Some ugly image of a brutish bear; 
But as it fled, it ran into a cloud 

Whence flowed soft strains upon the forest air. 
Of flute and song mid rusthng of a crowd. 

XXXV. 

At once broke out of music to the glance 

Bright wreaths of maidens floating in the breeze, 
And to the strain they soon began a dance 

Upon the vacant air and through the trees; 

But scarce the eye their fleeting shapes could seize, 
Until they wheeled above the secret fane. 

Hovering down the sky they dropped with ease, 
While to a distant lull had died the strain. 



CANTO I 21 

XXXVI. 

This was the home of Dian, these her woods, 
Where oft the Groddess rested from the chase, 

When she amid the sylTan sohtudes 

Had led her chou' in the tumultuous race, 
And of that spoil; the ail' felt long the trace, 

Though the gay rout had faded all away; 

It was the soft worn heart's own resting place, 

Far from the town, and the bold stare of day. 

xxxvn. 
A billowy moon-tipped play of fold on fold 

Waved through the middle of the multitude ; 
The ^Teath Avas broke, and one might then behold 

A form that stepped into the fane and stood. 

While all the train of Nymphs fled through the wood, 
Some to delight in oaks and some in water ; 

Then spake the queen of that sweet sisterhood 
In fond low tones to Agamemnon's daughter: 



22 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

xxxvni. 

"Beware the handsome man mthin thy walls I 

His eyes' soft sunbeams are a sea of ill, 
Within his slippery words lie many falls 

For those who touch the circle of his will ; 

Float not upon the raptured waves that thrill 
Out of his being, by Aphrodite's breath 

Stirred to a frenzy that the world shall fill, 
And sweep the woman with the man to death. 

XXXIX. 

**Thee have I chosen for another deed. 

Thou art to be the vase of suffering ; 
The Trojan love shall never be thy meed, 

But a new love thy life to Hght will bring ; 

And yet thou too wilt not escape the sting 
Which the high Gods in greatest deed bestow ; 

For states, for worlds thou art the offering, 
But I shall save thee at the last shai-p blow. 



CANTO I, 23 

Xli. 

•'And I shall bear thee to a foreign land, 

AVhere thou a holy priestess art to be 
"Within my temple on the wild sea's strand, 

Where broods a world of slavish savagery, 

WTiich is, through deed of thine, to be made free. 
This is the Love which nov>^ in thee hath- gleamed, 

And not before thou hast brought liberty 
Unto that land, art thou thyself redeemed. 

XLI. 

"Oh virgin, I am Artemis, the Queen, 

I roam the wood, I ramble in the sky; 
My silver bow hung there thou oft hast seen, 

Illuming night with modest purity; 

To thee of all mankind I feel most nigh. 
Upon my path in Heaven the brightest star 

Is thine, dispensing light to Barbary; 
Go forth and softly shine with me afar. 



24 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XLII. 

"After long years to this old home of thine, 

The Hellas new, thou shalt in joy return; 
My brother Phoebus calls thee to his shrine, 

Where thou wilt teach the world what it must learn, 

A duty new in living to discern; 
By thee his seeress shall his fane be trod, 

A higher priesthood wiU thy exile earn, 
From me thou wilt ascend to wisest God. 

XLIII. 

"There on old rocky Pytho's deep-cleft crest 
In light thou shalt sit down with voice renewed. 

When the great war is over, and holy rest 
Settles upon the land in golden mood 
Of sun and song and bhssful plenitude ; 

The far Barbarian's wisdom thou wilt hoard 
To bring to Hellas as her final good; 

Kestoring her, thou aii thyself restored." 



CANTO L 25 

XLIV. 

The Goddess vanished from the maiden's look, 

But left her in the glimmer of a dawn 
Through which did faint away the tuneful brook, 

And thi'ough whose milky haze she saw the fawn 
Dart trembling from the wood across a lawn, 

By men pursued vdth axes flashing bright, 

Tin in the rosy distance it was drawn 
Behind the hills, whence shot anew the light, 

XLV. 

There long she stayed, nor did her people know 
Wliither the maid this merry while had fled; 

Meantime Mycenae had an overflow 
Of earth below and heaven overhead. 
Of wine and sunshine which aU golden shed 

Upon that happy feast their richest showers, 
And Hghtly mid the throng the Muses led 

And lulled to rest the swiftly-stepping hours. 



26 AGAMEMNON'S' DA UGHTER, 



It was a time of sweet forgetfulness, 

When Letlie hands to men her deepest draught, 
For which full pay she asks — a fierce distress 

When they awake and feel the poisoned shaft, 

"VMiereof there is no cure in human craft, 
But in hot blood-drops gurgling from war's blow, 

When Furies have upon the nations laughed 
Their diabolic scorn and overthrow. 

XLvn. 
Ah yes, it was a merry cheery time, 

Paris the gallant Trojan conquered all. 
His Asian tongue could lisp a Grecian chime, 

And sweetest accents mingle in its fall ; 

E'en mother Clytemnestra was a thrall 
Of that soft spell which men were fain to own; 

He made the people vmisper, great and smiill, 
"Look ! he lias stolen Aphrodite's zone". 



CANTO I. 27 

XL VIII. 

Each minstrel sought to sing his bravest song 

Of heroes great and the heroic deed; 
Of war between the Gods and Giants strong, 

Of captive maid by doughty warrior freed, 

Of hearts that must with all men's sorrow bleed. 
Of Theseus bold, of suffering Hercules 

Y/ho hath of heroes won the golden meed, 
As he who can endure until himself he frees. 

XLIX. 

But the one song that people heard above 

All others sung upon that fatal day 
With maddest sting — it was the song of love. 

From every street uprose the dulcet lay, 

Tingling the blood to fancy's tricksy play, 
And hymning viewless nets by Eros wove. 

Which tangled mortals in the fateful fray 
And caught the highest God, old father Jove. 



28 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

L. 

Oil Antenorides, what silence deep 
Broods over thee amid the festival ! 

He marked a moving eye that knew no sleep, 
He heard Cassandi'a's far forewarning call 
Through revel moan Hke distant waterfall; 

Many a ghostly shape before him stood, 
And drew a bloody sign upon the wall 

Mid whisperings low: It cannot come to good. 

LI. 

But look beyond, there comes a distant train 
Slow-winding over the blue Arcadian hills, 

Like a sea-serpent of the richest stain 

It swims and every heart with beauty thrills, 
Yet with prophetic flashings of its iUs; 

It rears its crest above the verdant height. 
The little vales with lambent streak it fills, 

Swimming the landwaves green into the sight. 



CANTO I. 29 

LII. 

In gorgeous curves rolled on the beauteous thing, 
As it unfolded in the haze of afternoon, 

And sweet delirious currents it did bring 
Into the eye, and make the daylight swoon 
Away to di-eamy glimmers of the moon; 

But in the sky above there hung a frown, 
A cloud that made a dismal threat, but soon 

That cloud had melted to a golden crown. 

LIII. 

T was Helen coming up from Lacedemon, 
In bright Mycenae's joy awhile to stay, 

And see the festival of Agamemnon, 
The song, the dance, and the procession gay 
With the sweet bloom of manhood in its May; 

Iphigenia's aunt by birth was she. 
The two belong together in my lay. 

Twinned deep in storied old calamity. 



30 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LIV. 

But now slie comes, the glorious Spartan Helen, 
Into the Ai'give plain she bursts like day, 

And with her a new world for men to dwell in, 
Life, weary theme, becomes a happy play. 
To Gods serene is turned the human clay. 

Of an Elysian change she hath the power, 

Benea,th her glance each tree throws out a spray, 

And where she treads, the earth sends up a flower. 

LV. 

She moves in JJions' Gate, the fairest woman; 

The stony Lions' Heads peep out their lair 
Above the rock-built portal, with traces human 

Of Love's sweet trouble for that being rare. 

Whom they within the walls will guard with care, 
As they the city guard and its wise laws; 

To glances soft drops down their savage glare, 
And tender-heartedTgrow ferocious claws. 



CANTO I. 31 

LVI. 

The people ope her way along the street, 
The heroes bold take on an humble air, 

And in their hearts adore that shape complete; 
The children stand in little groups and stare, 
Wishing that they had Helen's golden hair. 

Or hand, or her white robe of fold on fold: 
Even the women must pronounce her fair, 

When they her faiHngs all had scanned and told. 

Within the walls there stands a palace high, 
WTiose court is girt with many columns white, 

And there the silver fountains gaily ply 
The fragrant air with jets of crystal bright. 
Or send along the sand swift streams of light, 

Wreathing around the feet of boys of stone, 
Who hold their torches in the eye of night. 

Or lean beside a kingly carven throne. 



32 AGAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

Lvin. 
Those graven boys will stir from spot to spot, 

They have a life within their marble breast, 
For ever fixed in motion is their lot. 

Forever moved by passion is their rest ; 

So has their Maker on theu* form impressed. 
With heart-beats aU his own a double soul. 

Which he himself in struggle long possessed. 
Ere he could make the warring twain one whole. 

LIX. 

Beneath a chiseled shape of youthful maid, 
Who coyly touched with dainty finger tip 

Her own chaste bosom, full of thoughts unsaid 
Of that sweet hour which brings the lip to lip. 
From whose deep rubied flower lovers sip 

Busy as bees — ^there Helen sat in state; 
Into aU hearts her glances slip 

Never to be forgotten — it is their fate. 



CANTO I. 33 

LX. 

She greets tlie tkronging heroes one by one; 

Lord Agamemnon speaks the golden word: 
"Hail, Helen, coming like the singing Sun; 

Through thee what lies within us dark or blurred 

Breaks out the brightest strain that time hath heard; 
That look of thine shall be forever ours, 

And thine our hearts, for thee to battle stirred: 
Hear while we swear it, ye 01ymj)ian Powers." 

LXI. 

All shouted loud applause, the oath they swore, 
Heard by the Gods above in council deep, 

Who then resolved the casket to outpour, 
Which, f uU of evils, they beside them keep 
For man, lest he in sloth may fall asleep, 

Or may for fateful deed unpunished go; 
Whereby the innocent must ever weep, 

Yoked with the gniilty in the chain wo. 



34 A GAlfEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

LXII. 

Meantime from Dian's fane within tlie wood 

The maiden Iphigenia homeward sj^ed, 
And soon beside the restless brook she stood 

Which leaps beneath the towers to its bed; 

Many a thought was whu'ling through her head 
Of that strange hfe of hers which was to be; 

The bodeful words the Goddess to her said, 
Fell cascades bright down to a dark-faced sea. 

Lxin. 
She passed within the court where Helen stood, 

Who spake to her full sweetly as she came; 
"Dear Niece, thou hast upon thy face a mood 

Which calls the restless world by a new name; 

Before thee I confess I feel a shame 
That I cannot attain to what thou art; 

How gladly would I change for thee my fame, 
And in my life feel full thy steadfast heart. 



CANTO I. 35 

LXIV. 

"Deep longing for I know not what I had; 

But when I see thee I am whole again; 
I cannot tell what makes me feel so sad, 

Oft must I shed my tears without a pain, 

Without a cloud it could forever rain; 
Oh I am rent in twain, I can but wail. 

The other part of me I seek in vain, 
Methinks thou hast it — teU me now thy tale." 

LXV. 

"I have no tale, oh lovely tears," she said, 

"But let me give instead this little ring, 
Within doth sleep a gem, in golden bed, 

A little token of my heart I bring; 

But let it nestle in its covering 
Lest it be lost, and lose its setting too; 

When coming trials leave in thee a sting. 
Perchance it; may hint help to bear thee through. 



36 AGAMEMNOirS DAUGHTER. 

Lx^^. 
"Ah were I but an liour so fair as thou ! 

But as I am I shall contented be; 
I look so gladly on thy beauteous brow, 

And yet a line of pain I there can see, 

An agony that struggles to get free. 
Can suffering interlock with beauty so ? 

At whom lookst thou ? That is young Paris, he 
"VMio came from Troy to-day, as thou mayst know.' 

LXVII. 

The crowd broke in with noisy reverence, 

Their prayers rapt by deep-lost looks to say 
Before that form divine; without defence, 

Iphigenia lone was swept away 

On living surges crazy with delay; 
Many a gallant Greek crushed in, one glance 

To get far dearer to him than the day, 
And stood in worship sunk as if trance. 



CANTO I. 37 

LXVIII. 

And Paris came and the full Trojan band, 
To gaze on her whom men agreed to call 

The fairest woman of the Grecian land, 
With them a guest now in Mycenae's hall, 
And Helen had a winsome word for all; 

But when on Paris she had turned her look, 
Each was the other's victor and the thrall, 

Each read the other's fate as in a book. 

LXIX. 

But hark ! the bard begins a song in praise 
Of Argive Helen, Lacedemon's Queen; 

Strong are the words whereof he builds his lays, 
And sweet the cadence falling in between, 
Dropping like skiey notes from choirs unseen: 

" Oh thou, of all our hearts the very heart, 
Of our fair stock the branch forever green, 

"What Hellas is in all her best, thou. art. 



38 AGAMEMNON'S DA VGHTEB. 

LXX. 

"For thee we give with joy this pearl of Hfe, 
For thee our city and its law are naught, 

For thee with tears our chikli*en and oui* wife 
We leave, and let them die at home distraught, 
Wliile we shall haste to dist^it battle, fraught 

With danger unto thee and th}^ fau' form; 

When once the bosom's gaest is thy sweet thought, 

Farewell our home of peace, and welcome storm. 

LXXI. 

"From our deep fealty to what is thine 

Doth trill, of all our life, the sweetest drop; 
Through us doth pour from thee a stream divine, 

WTiich fills our human lot unto the top 

With cataracts of joy that never stop 
E'en in the tempest or the whirlwind's blast, 

Though we be dashed with all the ills that drop 
From out the skies, and smite the world aghast. 



CANTO I. 39 

Lxxn. 
"For thine own honor lives heroic song, 

The tune of flutes, the touch of thin-shelled lyre; 
In many-folded robes the Graces sweep along, 

Who the dear maidens in the dance inspii'e 

To be as thou art, fau-est of the choir; 
Youth hands to thee her overflow of wine 

Lit with the sparkle of Olympian fire. 
Before Jove's beaker, Hebe fiUs thee thine. 

Lxxm. 
"The mighty Gods for thee come down to earth, 

And in a biu'st of joy their forms reveal; 
The Muses sing themselves to sudden birth 

In strains of thine, to lighten and to heal 

Our being's pain, which the born man must feel, 
While he shall stain with tears his prison bars; 

The man must sorrow know as manhood's saal, 
To take within his boundary the stars. 



40 A GAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

LXXIV. 

"The sword waits in its slieatli on tliy behalf, 

And always we shaU have to draw it too; 
Our life for thee we offer with a laugh, 

And it wiU be demanded through and through; 

If false to aU, to thee we shaU be true; 
The price we pay for what of thine we get, 

Who beauty loves, must ever beauty rue, 
This law the Gods on moi-tal men have set." 

LXXV. 

So sang the bard, and from his heaii he sang; 

He knew the Futui'e, Present, and the Past; 
He knew the joy of beauty and its pang, 

Love gave him bitter-sweet unto the last, 

Though the white years on him then* crop had cast; 
Love made him young, but thereto gave him sorrow, 

While Poesy did wing him for the blast. 
That where he fell to-day, he rose to-morrow. 



CANTO I. 41 

LXXVI. 

But Helen glided softly out the throng, 

A sudden pain she felt, a double pain; 
She felt old burdens of that poet's song 

Keturn and press upon her life again ; 

And with them now a burden new did strain 
Her heart-strings tense, already sorely weighed ; 

Soon Paris had her footsteps overta'en. 
He knew his prize, and openly he said : 

LXXVII. 

"In thy first glance the Gods declared thee mine; 

Not Hellas is thy worthy dwelling place, 
Go with me to the East, where thou shalt shine 

The rising sun upon a starry race; 

Leave homely duty to the homely face; 
Choose now a hfe of love with me to roam, 

Leave thy dull husband here, and his dull days, 
Quit rocky Sparta — Troy shall be thy home." 



42 AGAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER, 

Lxxvin. 
But faintly Helen stemmed his strong command : 

"Oh can I leave behind what I have been — 
The golden years that clasp me to my land, 

Leave husband and my babe to scorn and teen. 

Leave Hellas too, where I so fair am seen. 
Where longer than the Gods themselves remain 

I shall upon my Grecian throne be queen, 
For Zeus hath promised me his future reign. 

Lxxrx. 
"But ah! no word of Zeus my step can stay, 

When close behind me steals my destiny; 
Yes, Love, I feel I must with thee away, 

To-morrow on thy bosom I shall flee 

Through storms of all the Gods across the sea, 
Though I presage some mighty overthrow 

To lurk in this rash deed I do for thee; 
Fate rules my world, not Zeus — with thee I go." 



CANTO L 43 

LXXX. 

Then Paris hied, for faUing like a ray 
On night came IphigeDia, maiden free ; 

She met Aunt Helen gliding out the way, 
But marked upon her brow the mystery : 
"What aileth thee — art ill, my dear?" said she. 

Thy looks that were erewhile the sweetest grace 
To music wed, have lost their melodj^; 

Methinks I hear a battle in thy face." 

LXXXT. 

Helen gave answer in a flooded strain: 

"Sweet girl, me to myself thou dost recall ; 
I had a sigh that tore my heart in twain, 

And I was cast away from home and all. 

But now I shall myself anew install. 
And my whole life I shall through thee redeem ; 

Music returns within, I hear its fall, 
Zeus ruleth now, and Fate is not supreme. 



U A GAMEMNON 'S DA UGHTEB. 

Lxxxn. 
'*To-inorrow with the lark I shall be seen 

Hurrying home beneath the Spartan shield. 
There still to be what I have ever been, 

Till it be time to rove the Elysian field 

With husband Menelaus, who will wield 
A spirit sway with me for all my days ; 

And I shall never die, shall never yield 
To age, but stay the soul of Poet's lays." 

LXXXIII. 

In secret Helen left with rising day, 
She kept her promise Paris not to see ; 

But ere she went a mile upon her way, 
A soft repentance she could feel to be 
Mellowing her heai-t into Love's piety ; 

And longing came, which deepened to a sigh : 
"Ah me, why did I treat him churlishty. 

And did not even tell him once good-bye." 



CANTO L 45 

LXXXIV. 

The road ran down along the loving sea, 
Whose billows, one by one, upon the shore 

Would fall and plead at Helen's feet to be 
One moment, then would break forevermore 
Into the sand ; far out was heard the roar 

As ancient Ocean felt the power near, 

And splash of sea-nymphs and of Tritons hoar, 

Hurrying to the beach, now grown so dear. 

LXXXV. 

Then from the foam did Aphrodite rise, 

And step with grace upon her pearly car 
Made of a sea-shell streaked with ruby skies, 

And tuned to music's lull without a jar ; 

Nereids gathered round her near and far, 
Who strook the brine from fervid coal-black hair, 

Whereon white hands would tremble Hke a star, 
Twirling the tresses round their bosoms fair. 



46 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

LXXXVI. 

And sea-boys, even one sliort glimpse to get 
Of perfect being, bovered far in droves ; 

Tbe migbty wbale, tbe little finny set, 

And tbe strange dweller of lone island coves, 
Tbe odd fantastic sbape tbat sbj^ly roves 

In deep sea-vales — all felt tbe strong constraint ; 
Tbe beart of Ocean, full of many loves, 

Swelled to a mountain bigb, tben fell down faint, 

LXXXVII. 

As Apbrodite stepped from out tbe wave. 
And entered in ber fane upon tbe land ; 

Tbe sea grew calm at ber old task to lave 
Tbe sboaly ledges witb ber pale blue band. 
Calm at ber ceaseless wasbing of tbe sand 

Tbat it be clean for tbe last day ; tben fled 

Tbe sea-boys witb tbe nympbs far from tbe strand, 

Oceanus droops down as be were dead. 



CANTO I. 47 

LXXXVIII. 

The Groddess went within her temple rare, 

Whose slender amorous columns strove in vain 

To kiss the sea which bore her gently there, 
In purple biUows imaging the fane. 
With every form of Love's strong joy and pain 

That lay upon the temple's front up high, 
Carven so that they seemed to Hve again, 

Or in their agony again to die. 

LXXXIX. 

Those sculptured forms of old fond histories 
Must then have heard within the house a call 

From that fair Queen, as she did lightly rise. 
And take her place upon the pedestal. 
Where, as she stood, her garment she let faU, 

Which, sea-stained, hid away her shape divine, 
Whose glow the cold hard marble can enthrall, 

And make men drunk with beauty as with wine. 



48 A GAME3IN0N'S DA UGHTEB. 

xc. 
And there in lofty state the Goddess stood, 

With her deep bosom bared nnto the sight, 
Whence rose the first sweet throb of motherhood, 

The thi-ill to sink away in Love's last rite 

And in a dream of it to vanish quite ; 
The robe dropped down the loins, when was revealed 

To mortal men the Goddess in her might, 
V/ho deepest wounds hath made, and deepest healed. 

xci. 
To Aphrodite's temple Helen came, 

In her long journey of the lonely day. 
Within her bosom burned the hidden flame, 

She longed the Goddess one short prayer to say, 

Perchance a little sacrifice to pay, 
Some solace to receive from her sad thought 

Which dwelt upon a stranger's face alway, 
Or left her for a moment more distraught. 



CANTO L 49 

xcii. 

She looked, and words broke deeply from her breast: 
' 'Goddess, I never knew thee until now ; 

Of aU divinities thou art the best, 

Though oft before I paid to thee my vow. 
My life with thine thou never didst endow. 

Of land and sea thou art the conqueress. 
Henceforth in aU I shall be thine, be thou, 

pe it to bring me joy or bring distress." 

xcm. 
Therewith from ruffled skies the thunder fell, 

Dov\^n tlu'ough the temple roof red hghtning broke, 
And made from clouds a falling fiery well. 

Whence mid the flames the Goddess sternly spoke, 

In words which Helen smote like hammer stroke : 
"My Paris whom I sent, why dost thou flee? 

This burning wrath of mine wilt thou provoke? 
Yield me and follow forth thy destiny. 



50 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

XCIV. 

"With him to Troy thou must erelong depart, 

This Hellas must thou leave and family, 
Here Pallas wise and Juno chaste thy heart 

Will share; my sway must undivided be; 

A life of roses wilt thou lead with me; 
Why turn thine eye to look upon that ring ? 

Halved shall I not endure the sovereignty; 
Beware my curse, beware the Paphian sting. 

xcv. 
*A God can give or take away his meed, 

Love can I give, but also I give hate; 
Detested shall I make thy life indeed. 

As thou art now beloved by small and great; 

Nor this hard blow will yet my anger sate : 
What makes thee Helen I shall take away, 

What holds the world in thrall to thee like Fate- 
Thy beauty shall I shrivel in a day. 



CANTO I 51 

XCVI. 

"I bid tliee break at once .that hated ring, 
Else I shall strike thy youthful body sere, 

Leave thee a withered, wrinlded viituous thing, 
Whose lusty spring is torn from all the year, 
Whose juices scarce will furnish one moist tear 

Which thou wilt try in loneliness to shed — 
'Tis broke ! Seek Spaiian home without a fear, 

I shall be there and everywhere ahead." 

XCVII. 

So Helen fled out in the tempest dazed, 

To hollow Lacedernon in a dale; 
The hiU-tops flew, upon the thunder raised, 

As if they would the skies above assail. 

And over all the Gods of Greece prevail; 
The lightning chained with fire the peak to peak, 

Then leaped with molten links into the vale. 
And whirled them round the dame in vivid streak. 



52 AGAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER, 

XCVTII. 

Still Helen fled amid the storm forlorn, 
To her a saving power had been given, 

Zeus twii'led his ragged lightnings all unshorn, 
He threatened the lone woman with his levin, 
In some deep protest raged the hills and heaven, 

Still on she went through brakes and thickest holts, 
Around her everywhere the crags fell riven, 

That woman slid through all the thunder bolts. 

xcix. 
The house of Agamemnon woke that day. 

In misty morn to find fair Helen fled; 
Still flocked the heroes greetings sweet to say, 

For each had risen early from his bed, 

To catch his dearest dream ere it had sped; 
In vain, for she was gone, their hearts were shent: 

"Tis some curst^whim in beauty's fickle head". 
So guesses flew in deej^ bewilderment. 



CANTO I 53 

0. 

But in tliose bosoms pique soon rose to prayer: 

'•Though thou be gone, Oh leave thy look behind; 
It builds in us the world each day more fair, 

Till yestreen we saw Helen, we were blind; 

Rest thou the image painted in our mind 
Of man and woman's love in fond caress; 

Thou ai-t the very self of human kind, 
Blent to a vision of aU loveliness." 

or. 
They shouted for the bard, but he was sad, 

He would not sing his music-flooding ode 
Which bubbles out Castalia's waters glad, 

But spake a word of melancholy bode: 

"Gone ! still her look in us she hath bestowed; 
It is in me, I see it in you all; 

Whoever bears within his soul the goad 
Of Helen's look, must soon obey her call." 



54 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

en. 
Now Paris, when he heard that she had gone, 

Bethought himself that he must also leave; 
Next day he bade farewell at early dawn, 

With tears at parting he did seem to grieve; 

Whereat the king began anew to weave 
His scheme, and caUed his daughter, but she had llown 

Unto her flowers, fresh buds to interleave 
With thoughts about the life to be her own. 

GUI. 
Paris gave out he would return to Troy, 

To tell the happy tale of what he saw, 
The festival, the friendliness, the joy. 

With sober things — the city, land and law; 

But southward all his sails were seen to draw 
By the Laconic coast into the sea; 

Mycenae gazed afar, presaged no flaw. 
But tui-ned to games and dance and minstrelsy. 



CANTO L 55 

crv. 
One man alone of all the TrjDJan band, 

While out at sea, sought Paris to dissuade, 
And begged to steer his ship to his own land; 

'T was Antenorides who loved a maid 

At home, to whom his mind was ever staid; 
**This Spartan tour", said he, "portends no good; 

In us the Grecian woman in a blade 
To pierce the Trojan heart and let its blood, 

cv. 
The Trojans laughed at the prophetic word. 

And all applauded Paris and his scheme; 
The madmen their true voice no longer heard, 

They too found Helen's look deep in their dream, 

And all was not which there to be did seem; 
So shouted they : Now is our happy mood, 

We must again behold high beauty's gleam, 
And pluck the reddest rose of womanhood.'* 



56 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

cvi. 
So sailed tliey on, nor had they any care, 

They stirred long ripples in the silent seas, 
And in the night {hej saw the starry Bear 

With many blazing eyes look through the trees, 

And heard strange voices coming down the breeze; 
StiU sailed they on, their deed could not be let, 

But wise, forethoughtful Antenorides 
"Was dragged along with them in fateful net. 

cvn. 
A horseman dashed into the Lion's Gate 

One day, with foam-flakes snowing from his steed, 
And the pale rider scarcely could await 

The struggling word to break the woeful deed: 

"The Gods the loss of HeUas have decreed ! 
A Spartan home hath om' fair Helen quit; 

Along my path tlie mother Earth did bleed. 
As if she in her very heart were hit. 



CANTO I. 57 

cvni. 
*'To Lacedemon came a Trojan man, 

And Menelaus gave a holiday, 
The dearest maidens danced, the young men ran, 

And all the p80j)le turned their thoughts to play; 

Meanwhile the stranger planned his wicked way 
To carry Helen off beneath the night; 

To Grecian gifts behold the Trojan pay, 
And it shall be re-paid with all our might. 

cix. 

Stiil^yonder ye may see the loving pair 

In loungeing sail to dally on the wave, 
Which ZephjTus caresses with his air, 

"While soft Oceanus the keel doth lave, 

And flocks of doves fly in the sun to save 
From view of man the hour of lovers' flight; 

Now is my country but an unknown grave, 
And all her golden days are gone in night." 



58 A GAMEMNON'S DA UGHTER. 

ex. 
Ipliigenia too in sorrow spoke : 

"So thou art gone at last, it was my fear; 
By some fell power, my ring, I know, is broke, 

I gave it thee, stained with thy di-opping tear, 

"When thy full heart had drawn to me so near; 
Ah never have I felt my life so crossed, 

No more than thou can I stay longer here. 
With thee now lost am I, the world is lost." 

CXI. 

But Agamemnon's words were open joy: 
"Let the fair woman go, I fain would pray; 

I shall restore her soon, and lofty Troy 
In mighty war I shall bring under sway, 
Whereto I have long sought some secret way; 

I shall that Asian bound to my full power 
Now push far out into the rising day; 

To Priam's son I yet shall give a dower. 



CANTO I. 59 

CXII. 

But while they talked, arose a distant dust 

Upon the road around a little hiU; 
That dusty cloud was whirled within a gust 

Of sudden wind into the town so shriU, 

That all the people leaped up in a thrill; 
Tlien from the cloud was born a mounted group, 

And of the group one man each eye did fill, 
Spurring ahead of aU the sweaty troop. 

CXIII. 

Soon any child Avithin the town could tell 

That Menelaus was the foremost man; 
Quickly he rode into the citadel, 

While aU the crowd his broken look did scan, 

And wonder what might be his anxious plan; 
Then came Presentiment's dark underflow, 

While Kumor wildly raged about, and ran 
Proclaiminf^f tumult, war and overthrow. 



60 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXIV. 

He cried in pain: "Where is my Helen, where?" 
To liim was pointed then far out at sea 

A speck that danced between the wave and air, 
A sparkling sail that lingered laughingly. 
And gave one parting glance in tiny glee, 

Then twinkled out the blue to nothingness; 
Whereat his eyes strained to their last degree, 

Broke silent tears that told his deep distress. 

cxv.- 
To that same spot had come the Grecian chiefs, 

Speechless'they gazed at the retreating sail 
Which left behind in them a world of griefs; 

It seemed as their own soul began to fail 

And flicker off upon the ship's sea trail; 
But when at last from view the vessel sped, 

They stood not yahant Greeks in coats of mail, 
Bnt bronzed corpses, of a sudden dead. 



CANTO L 61 

CXVI. 

As rustling leaves break in October dreams, 
When under trees we lie but half asleep, 

And wliafc we are awake blends into gleams 
Of life when it has bioken Time's strong keep. 
And of the world beyond we get a peep; 

So all the Greeks saw through their ghostly stare 
The future deed rise pictured from the deep, 

And sprang at once their armor to prepare. 



CANTO 11. 



IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 



List to the winds and catch theu' moody lay! 
XJnrestful up and down the strait they blow, 
They meet at Aulis, tumble up the bay, 
They twist the curls of Tritons to and fro, 
And all the fleet without an oar they row, 
No sail can be unfurled, no rope be cast, 

Above the sea-war voices singing low 
Are heard out of the bosom of the blast: 



CANTO IT. 63 

n. 
"We blow to the East and West, to the South and North, 

Over the water and land unseen we break, 
Around, about, above, below, and back and forth, 

Forever change we are and change we make. 

Eternally the heavy ships we shake. 
The drowsy men we rouse with our commotion, 

We move the deeps for the movement's sake. 
And stir to Hfe anew the ancient Ocean.'' 

ni. 
Hear Boreas whistle in his chilly blast! 

Upon the sail he leaves his icy coat. 
The Southwind breathes warm kisses on the mast. 

And sings its passion in a tender rote, 

The ice melts in the ripple to the note, 
And Zephyrus doth come and lay his balm, 

The waves drop in a trance around the boat. 
The sails are dead, and Aulis in a calm. 



G4 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

TV. 

So sweep the winged winds from rage to rest, 
And tlien from rest they rush to rage again, 

The wave mounts upward to their wild behest, 
Or sleeps in peace beneath theu' soothing strain, 
With dreams of skies held fast in crystal plain. 

But soon the blasts are loosed, and bring anew 
In wi'athful energy their stress and pain. 

For in this world must all receive its due. 

V. 

Now on this windy watery element, 
Where sea-Ht Aulis lies along her strand. 

The Greeks were kept, with double j^iu-pose rent, 
Whether to bring back Helen to her land. 
Or to send home all of their warrior band; 

Oft had they spoken, yet could not agree, 
Contention rose, whatever might be planned, 

And dashed them round as surges on the sea. 



CANTO IL 65 

YI. 

For every madding wind burst out released, 

Wlien but a sail upreared would give a si^n; 
They rushed from South and North, from West and East, 

As if sent on their way by power malign; 

But when the boats were moored, the sun would shine, 
Then all the wise men wondered what it was 

That could the eager ships so long confine; 
Some said the Gods, and some, that Man was cause. 

VII. 

The oldest chief was prudent, white-haired Nestor, 
Words sweeter flowed than honey from his tongue : 

The holy priest was Calchas, son of Thestor, 
Who on the voice of God or Goddess hung, 
And knew what every bird in heaven sung; 

Ulysses always deepest wisdom taught. 

Though it might not prevail at first among 

His people, till they took the second thought. 



66 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

VIII. 

Ajax had come, the bulky man of brawn, 

Who bore a mighty fortress in his frame; 
Small Menelaus too, whose wrong had drawn 

All Greece to seek revenge for Helen's shame; 

Young Diomed, a doughty knight who came 
From Argive land, whose fiery soul sought fight; 

Thersites, who had won a bitter name 
Abusing leaders whether wrong or right. 

IX. 

But Agamemnon was the greatest king, 

Of all the chiefs he had most towns and land, 

And most ambition to the war could bring, 
Achilles had inborn the Hero's strand, 
Yet not with it the gift of self-command 

Which trains to duty first the rebel soul; 
Still he would be the leader of the band. 

And all the rest, but not himself, control. 



CANTO IT. 67 



Good Palamedes, too, was present there, 

The man who always sought to look at right; 

For beauty he had not a single care. 

Its tender thrill ruled not his sense of sight. 
Whereby his Grecian soul had left him quite. 

They all were gathered now the chief to choose, 
The herald, who Talthybius was hight. 

Bade silence so that each could tell his views. 

XI. 

King Agamemnon was the first to rise, 
A politician's wiles he knew to life, 

Tears started as he looked up in the skies: 
"I think I shall go home to mine own wife, 
And Helen leave with all this Trojan strife; 

Our stay at Troy will last for many suns, 
Far, far it lies, with all disaster rife, 

Let us retui-n to home and little ones." 



68 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

XII. 

Broke Palamedes in, the rightful man: 

" So many faithful v/ives why should we leave. 

For that one faithless Argive mf e who ran 
Away from husband, leaving him to giieve, 
And tell th(i time in tears without reprieve ? 

I say she hath not won a goodly fame ; 

And shall we every household now bereave 

For her who boldly threw away her name ? 

XIII. 

" She went with Paris of her own free-will, 

Though she may blame the Goddess for the deed ; 

The stain upon her life remaineth still, 
Although she seek to hide it in a creed. 
And make divine whatever may mislead; 

The woman who is led by Aphrodite's word, 
Or shah, for guilt the Paphian power plead. 

Must first herself by harlotry be stin-ed. 



CANTO II 69 

XIV. 

" I shall not quit my home for such a jade, 

And leave to sigh and sorrow all mine own ; 
Perish the oaths to Tyndarus we made, 

By breaking them is now the strong man shown, 

I shall do so, although I stand alone. 
Oh Helen, for thine ills what deadlj^ cure ! 

Thou art not worth this solitary moan, 
For thee distained we shall not give the pure." 

XV. 

Then forward sprang to speak young Diomed» 

Within his eyes the flint kept striking fire, 
And sparkles threw with every word he said, 

Whereby that word did drop red-hot with ire, 

Yet had a music in it as a lyre 
When burn harmonic ardors in the strings, 

Attuned to song aflame from warlike choir, 
When it the blood-beat of the battle sings. 



70 IFHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

XVI. 

" I say, let us at once sweep forth to Troy, 

For Helen give our lives in valor's glee; 
Witliout her glance the world hath not one joy. 

The all-in-aU of all oui- hearts is she; 

What's wife and child, what's all that is to be, 
If fairest Helen must a captive sigh ? 

"What then am I myself in verity. 
If I the Greek cannot for Helen die ?" 

XVII. 

Whereat the Greeks sent up a mighty shout, 
That rose an unseen mountain to the skies, 

For each one heard the very word spoke out. 
Which in his heart had struggled hard to rise 
From that dim lake where sj^eech unbodied lies 

Then stood Ulysses forth who knew the dutiful, 
Well he deserved to be entitled wise, 

Though wisdom coined he not into the beautiful. 



CANTO 11. 71 

"A wife and babe I too at liome have left, 

Telemaclms and true Penelope, 
But of them both I am this day bereft. 

Unless thi'ough Troy I bring them back to me. 

And raze that hold of Greek capti\dty. 
If I shall win them, Helen is the cost. 

In her the one, all wives we must set free, 
And in her loss, behold we aU are lost." 

XIX. 

No shout the Greeks gave wise Ulysses' speech. 
For by them he was hardly understood; 

His thoughts flew high in air beyond their reach, 
And yet they somehow felt his words were good, 
Except Thersites, of the scoffers' brood; 

He turned grave wisdom into ridicule. 
He railed at Helen and all womanhood, 

And made the world just like himself — a fool. 



72 IPHIGENIA AT A ULI8. 

XX. 

"The game in this whole war is love", he said, 
"The love of Trojan booty is the main; 

Yet if the love of Helen tickles Diomed, 

Why then should I and other Greeks be slain 
For that one woman, vainest of the vain? 

But we are told in one to see the all, 

Such misty music is our wise man's strain ; 

So be it— in Helen see each woman's fall." 

XXI. 

Then Nestor rose and caught from him the word. 
And tore from it the lie in knavery wrapped; 

The old man's voice the people gladly heard, 
He after wise Ulysses spoke, and capped 
Dim wisdom with some shining legend apt. 

Or story taken from his far-off youth, 

Telling a wondrous tale that deeply lapped 

In folds of rich romance the wise man's truth. 



CANTO IL 73 

XXII. 

Higli sounded the applause of Grecians, for 

He called them back from scorn to their own heart, 

In sweetest tones of silvery orator, 
And many turns delicious of his art, 
Yet flashing wisdom out of every part. 

The aged man sat down, a 3-outh arose 

Whose single glance made all the people start 

The battle cry, as if to charge their foes. 

xxin. 
It was Achilles who in splendor came, 

The noblest form of all the Grecian host, 
Each muscle was athirsfc for glorious fame 

In tear- worn war, whatever be the cost; 

But the great world in his own self was lost; 
He knew who was the Hero, his name could call, 

A name on fleeting Time to be engrossed, 
All men were there for him, not he for all. 



74 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

XXIV. 

Yet lie had nobler strands within his breast, 
Which Cheiron, wisest teacher, raised to day; 

Of music's concord was his soul possessed. 
He weU could touch the Ipic chords in play. 
And sing heroic deeds in lofty lay. 

Till fired by his own strains he soared above 
And found a tuneful sphere, where every way 

Led unto harmony, and human love. 

XXV. 

But Cheiron's lesson was now well forgot, 

The Hero sought the army's chieftaincy. 
He was for fairest Helen, yet was not, 

But for his own fair deed that was to be; 

He rose to speak, the entire company, 
Rapt with his beauty, whispered each to other: 

"He is the man for all supremacy, 
Godlike his shape, a Goddess is his mother. 



CANTO IL 75 



''See "but the motion of his hand- what joy ! 

It pours within us more than Bacchic stream; 
For him now could we take another Troy, 

More beautiful than Helen is that gleam, 

With our last breath we would his hfe redeem, 
If he a captive were as she is now, 

Of gloried Hercules he comes the dream. 
The ray divine is flashing from his brow." 

xxvn. 
Quick words of shoii contempt Achilles shot: 

"Let us no more in useless speech debate 
Whether the dame shaU be restored or not, 

But let us choose a chief at any rate, 

Then can I teU what is to be her fate 
When I shall see oui' leader and his might, 

If he be merely first in wealth and state. 
Or he who in the front rank best can fight." 



76 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

XXVIII. 

Ulysses seized the lielin with lots, and prayed: 
"Oh Zeus, put the right man in the right place ! 

Let rule disjoint from body's might be made, 
Lest brawny arm take all for its own grace. 
And smite both rule and reason down apace ! " 

The Greeks with wise Ulysses prayed the prayer. 
When Agamemnon's lot leaped out the case 

Of brilliant bronze into the eager air. 

XXIX. 

Achilles turned in silent wrath aside. 

Back to his syWan home he thought to go, 

In Aulis he would not one day abide, 

But leave ungTateful Grecians to their wo, 
Who were not able their best man to know; 

He went alone alon^' the ridged sand, 
His tears into the sea began to flow, 

And swell the waves that strook in peace the strand. 



CANTO 11. 77 

XXX. 

"Ah, why was I not born of slaves a slave, 

Why was heroic heart put in my breast, 
To be the scorn of every subtle knave. 

And from the struggle never to have rest ? 

Oh mother Thetis, mount thy billows' crest, 
And teU why thou divine hast brought me forth, 

Me Goddess-born, to be by time distressed, 
By men to be cast out as nothing worth." 

XXXI. 

Therewith he flung a tear into the brine. 

Which heaved to meet him like a mother's heart; 

A thousand hands above the waves did shine, 
And reach out to him there as to impart 
Some touch of balm to soothe his fiery smart; 

And all the sea became a sea of light, 

While from the ripples' break soft tones did start 

And turn to speech just at the margent white. 



78 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS, 

XXXII. 

"My son, I hear thee weeping at my shore, 

Would it were the last tear that thou wilt shed ! 

Thy honor yet will be neglected more. 

And contumely's dart will pierce thy head. 
Until thou hest cold among the dead. 

Thy lot it is by men of httle worth, 

To be misprized till thy full time be sped. 

This is the badge of thy heroic bu'th. 

xxxin. 
"Gods, pity me, the mother of but one, 

"W^o is so great that he must early die; 
Could I have borne a weak, ignoble son, 

Then mine had been a blest maternity. 

Yet wherefore am I mother but to cry ? 
And wherefore am I Goddess but to bear 

The sorrows of the world upon my sigh ? 
Oh stay, my son, it is thy mother's prayer." 



CANTO II 79 

XXXIV. 

Therewith she rose above the mighty mere, 
Her son she kissed as the great waters drave, 

And Avith her own she washed away his tear, 
Yet with her breath divine endurance gave 
Of the heroic pang which stills the grave. 

Up with her rose the ocean many-tressed. 
Who fitted to her form his yielding wave. 

And with her clasped the Hero's shaggy breast. 

XXXV. 

With one embrace she sank down in the main. 

The struggling waters rested from their coil. 
Peace spread on billows blue afar her train. 

And busy ripples turned back to their toil; 

Achilles felt no more his bosom's broil. 
When he had heard his loving mother's speech; 

He traced strange thoughts upon the sandy soil, 
And picked up gorgeous shells along the beach. 



80 IPHIGENIA AT A ULIS. 

XXXVI. 

Proud Agamemnon sat within his tent, 

The Chieftains flocked the newest man to greet, 

And many costly presents to him sent 

Of golden beakers, tripods, vestments meet 
For body, bed, for stool beneath his feet; 

It was a wild exultant gathering 

That surged around to knee the royal seat, 

And loud proclaimed a God to be the king. 

XXXVII. 

The Leader deigns to deem himself a God, 
Himself to be above all guilt he deems. 

And of man's punishment to bear the rod. 
Dire Ate feeds his heart with all her dreams. 
And insolence from every action gleams, 

E'en royal courtesy^ is throned in pride. 
No limit to his will to have he seems, 

No Zeus, but he Olympus doth bestride. 



CANTO 11. 81 

xxxvni. 
Full early in the morn he seeks the chase, 

To vent in wildest sport his wanton mood, 
To hunt instead of men the sylvan race, 

When suddenly he comes to Dian's wood, 

Which on a hill not far from Aulis stood; 
A sacred sjiot, that was encircled round 

With walls and hedges, woven to exclude 
All trespass from the hidden holy ground. 

IXL. 

Within the close were many pretty fawns, 

That cropped the leaves with kisses delicate, 
Or played in coyish pleasantry on lawns, 

Without the dream of hairy horned mate, 

All to the purest Goddess dedicate. 
It was a sport where none with stained thought 

Might enter in the pearl-embosomed gate; 
The very air breathed innocence untaught. 



82 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

XL. 

But Agememnon knew no sacred bound, 
Desire had now become bis only law, 

He leaped the wall and sprang upon the ground. 
The fairest fawn within the grove he saw, 
And there he smote her with goat-footed paw. 

As if he were a satyr of the wood; 

Deep in her tender heai*t sunk down the claw, 

And o'er her body white was written blood. 

XLI. 

The heart-struck fawn ran off toward the fane 
SpiUing her virgin di^ops with helpless shriek; 

Along the gi-ass was trailed a purple stain. 

Which burned the gTeenest sod to a sere streak. 
And called on Mother Earth revenge to wTeak. 

To altar of the Goddess pure she fled. 

And gave one piteous look of prayer meek, 

Then f eU down at the feet of Dian, dead. 



(JANTO IL 83 

XLH, 

At once the sky was dashed in blackest wi'ath, 
Amid the trees leaped red the ragged fire, 

The heavens everywhere portended scath, 
As if they sought to make the world a pjT^e, 
And singe it to a crisp with lightnings dire; 

The thunder chain, with dreadful links of sound, 
Clanked on the flaming air with wi'ong afire, 

And flung fleet molten fetters to the ground. 

XLIII. 

The timid fawns had scampered through the grove, 
With terror of the time their bodies shook, 

Through hiding thicket one by one they strove, 
Or huddled in a mass within a nook. 
Around they dared not for a moment look; 

It seemed as if the Goddess could not shield 
Her innocents along the forest brook. 

But must to ruthless ravager them yield. 



84 IPHIGENIA AT AVLIS. 

XLIV. 

The Leader knew at once what he had done. 
He hurried pale from forest to the fleet, 

The glance of Goddess there he thought to shun; 
He ordered all the chiefs betimes to meet, 
And bring aboard the armament complete: 

"Aboard, Aboard, I shall no more delay, 
Seize hold the oar, hoist to the wind the sheet. 

And strike the foamy wave to-day, to-day." 

XLV. 

The people deeply wondered, but obeyed; 

Like ants they swarmed along the shelying shore. 
And not a moment in their task delayed; 

They dragged the ships down to the water hoar 

With shouts that capped the hill-tops in a roar; 
They cut in haste the hawser from the land. 

Then rose to smite the salt sea with the oar. 
And thought to leave at once old AuUs* strand. 



CANTO L 85 

XLVI, 

But when the air had heard one lusty stroke. 

It madly changed into a furious blast; 
Each sail did seem the wind-god to provoke, 

So that he stripped it from the reehng mast, 

And its white tatters in the sea did cast; 
The Furies of the air would hiss and howl, 

The Demons of the sea would scurry past. 
And fiuTow its calm face with gloaming scowl. 

XLVII. 

The wrathful winds again were heard to sing: 
"The man shall not escape, the guilty man; 

We come, we come, his wicked deed we bring. 
Our hands have been at work since Time began, 
And we have built the world the Gods did plan. 

The blast on sea and land is but our speed 
The hidden wrong from out the earth to ban. 

We spii'its are that blow to man his deed." 



86 IPIHGENIA AT AULI8, 

XLTm. 

Thus in a chorus dolorous they sang, 

With its vast bass of waters chimed the deep, 

The skies attuned thereto with thunder rang, 

Long rocky hands would catch the keel, and keep 
It fast on shoals, or hui-l it on the steep, 

Till every ship put back into the bay; 

Then would the winds begin to fall asleep, 

Or mid the masts low notes of guilt to play. 

XLIX. 

And every Grecian soul amazed did ask: 

"Why do the Gods to us opposed stand? 
For it is they who stop us from our task 

Fau' Helen's wrong to quit with vengeful hand. 

Some unseen crime is lurking in the land, 
Innocent blood its curses on us wreaks. 

The culprit must be found, his guilt be banned. 
Although he be the first man of the Greeks." 



CANTO IL 87 

L. 

Then sounded through the multitude of masts 

The herald's voice, Talthybius shrill; 
It sent a shudder like the shrieking blasts, 

And made the host that felt its keenness, chill 

With fearful bodements of a coming ill; 
To the assembly all the Grecians throng 

To hear what is the word divine, while still 
The winds at parting lisp a sigh of wrong. 

LI. 

Then Calchas, holy Priest, the first arose, 
The darkness was transparent to his view, 

He kenned the will of Gods and of their foes, 
How the great Universe is ruled he knew, 
How man in it is governed saw he too. 

Upon his heart the law was deeply writ, 
His eye shone sunlike looking on the True, 

The world he saw not, but the God in it, 



88 IPHIGENIA AT A ULTS. 

LII. 

Tfie brook he heard not but the Nymph therein. 
The roar of skies would speak to him of Jove; 

So he had heard the winds beneath their din 
Announce the deed that wronged the Gods above. 
And had on Earth below slain human love; 

He was the only man in all the fleet 
Who knew the voice in which the tempest strove. 

And could its very words to men repeat. 

Lin. 
Beside the wiU of Gods to him was known 

The human soul, which he could clearly scan 
When it in darkest depths was left alone 

With guUt, by Gods forsaken and by man, 

By aU the lightnings pierced of its own ban; 
He looked in it and saw the deep disease. 

Straightway he sought to carry out the plan 
Whereby to give to it the sweet release. 



CANTO IL 89 

LIV. 

Sucli was of holy priest the greatest gift. 

He sought the errant spirit to reclaim, 
The burden from the brealdng heart to lift, 

To bring atonement for all wicked blame, 

And new existence give and a new name; 
The guilty life he could far down um'oU, 

And take the evil strain out of its frame, 
And reconcile with Gods the cast-off soul. 

LV. 

He spake a speech that all the host could hear: 

" I tell what Zeus and mine own soul command, 
Although my sharp rebuke shall smite the ear 

Of highest man in all the Grecian band : 

Ye sail away unto the Trojan Land 
Wrong to avenge, and yet that very wrong 

At Aulis has been done with wanton hand; 
Now Helen's injuries to Greeks belong." 



90 IPHIGENIA AT A ULIS. 

LVI. 

"A fawn devote to virgin Artemis 
Is lieing slain within her holy ground; 

The guilt of Paris I proclaim, is his 

Who did the lustful deed, and made a wound 
On innocence which would all Troy astound; 

Think not the Gods will pass in us offence 

For which they shall the Trojan town confound; 

They punish in us too its insolence. 

Lvn. 
"Our deities are high because the rods 

They bear for all who shall their law transgress; 
Greek wrong is punished hardest by Greek Gods, 

For deed of guilt give ye to them redress, 

Impartial is their wrath, their blessedness; 
If they have judgement sent against proud Troy, 

By that same judgement now they send us stress 
Of winds, whereof take heed lest they destroy. 



CANTO II 91 

Lvni. 
^'A contradiction is of Gods the hate, 

They will not long abide discordancy; 
That man they leave unhelped to vengeful fate, 

Who seeketh not from guilt himself to free, 

And to bring back his life to harmony; 
By sacrifice alone can he be rid 

Of wrongful deed, whose ruth he feels when he 
Does to himself what he to others did. 

LIX. 

*' Oh Leader brave, thou hast a daughter dear, 

A virgin pure as is the sky-born snow; 
I cannot speak the word without a tear, 

The Goddess bids thy child to be laid low 

Upon her altar with the axe's blow, 
The winds will never cease from out the skies 

To pour upon the fleet their blasts of wo, 
Till with the fawn thy bleeding daughter lies. 



92 IPHIGENIA AT AULI8. 

IiX. 

"If to the Gods for all thou wilt her lend, 

Thou shalt thyself from thine own wrong redeem. 
For thou hast taken back thy deed to mend, 

And plucked it from the penalty supreme; 

True leadership will out thine action gleam 
When for thy land thou yieldest dearest ties; 

And the new Helen wiU restored beam 
In thine own daughter and her sacrifice." 

LXI. 

So spake the holy Priest, who truly saw 

In all its deeps what lies in human deed; 
But Agamemnon spumed the sacred law, 

And cursed the si)otless man who said the creed; 

Thou coward Priest! I know thy calling's greed, 
* Tis gold that buys thy word, somebody's gold, 

Who is mine enemy; the Gods take heed 
Through thee on pelf and power to keep their hold. 



CANTO IL 93 

Lxn, 
"Thy subtle priestly craft shall not rule me, 

Although thou make weak men in fear opine 
Thy will to be the will of deity; 

My own sweet will is just as good as thine. 

And I believe it is quite as divine, 
Nay more divine, for I have power. The oar 

Now seize again. Oh Greeks, and smite the brine 
For Troy, our injured Helen to restore/* 

Lxni. 
The men went down into their ships once more, 

And stuTed unwilling waves with busy blade, 
But soon they heard approach a wild uproar 

From blackest cloud, wherein the flashes played 

So fast that every seaman was dismayed; 
And suddenly the winds smote in a throng 

The sails to ghostly shrouds of gloomy shades 
Singing a new and more destinictive song: 



94 IFHIGENIA AT AVLTS. 

LXIV. 

" Know ye that twice have we with shrilly lay 
To AuHs come and sung amid the fleet; 

Our first was gay and chimed a changeful play, 
The second moved to a far deeper beat 
Taken from vengeance whistling through the sheet; 

The third time we are here with curse more savage, 
And still ye may be saved by quick retreat, 

The next is last, beware its song of ravage." 

LXV. 

Then ship on ship was driven in the clamor, 
Men fell into the wave and rose no more, 

Over the water flared a lurid glamour. 

Wherein damned phantoms smote the sea and shore. 
And every sail from mast and halyard tore ; 

The ships could scarce escape the crackling flame 
Which out the belly of the winds upbore, 

By fleeing back to Aulis whence they came. 



CANTO IL 95 

LXVI. 

The first to i^ut about into the bay, 

Was Agamemnon, palsied at the sign 
Which Gods had shown to him of their own way; 

He sent at once for Calchas, man divine, 

To breali the spell of that great might malign, 
He fell down by the Priest with heavy groans, 

Yet his new life through tears began to shine, 
As he with soothed winds did mingle moans: 

Lxvn. 
**Zeus, Father, must I sacrifice my daughter! 

Of womanhood the tender blooming rose ! 
The sweetest flower of my life I thought her; 

What then have I to live for if she goes ? 

Help, Calchas, stroke thy hand along my throes: 
Thine eye bids me to think myself a king; 

I am a king — the Leader here bestows 
His daughter and himself an offering." 



96 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

Lxvin. 
Meantime Mycenae gay its song had lost. 

The dance had ceased and meriy festival; 
In place of joy its hearts were sorrow-tossed. 

The mother, wife, the little children all 

Oft gathered lonely on the city wall 
To gaze for messenger or ship afar; 

No voice was heard but woman's cry or caU, 
For every man had gone to tearful war. 

LXIX, 

No word from AuHs came, they cannot hear 
"What is the reason of so long delay; 

Iphigenia thinks without a fear 
A visit to her noble sire to pay, 
Ere he to distant Troy be gone away; 

Out of the Lions' Gate she drove her team 
Of mules that shook the sweaty yoke aU day, 

TJp hill and down, and by the rippling stream. 



CANTO II 97 

LXX, 

Her chariot first ran through the stony glen, 

Where once the Gods and Titans fought their fight, 
In ages hoar, then left it unto men; 

She saw rocks hurled with superhuman might. 

And dark chaotic powers put to flight 
Long long ago, when first this sunny world 

Of Grecian Gods dawned gleaming on the sight, 
And gloomy deities to Tartarus whMed, 

LXXI. 

And then she went through silent piney dells, 
Where she would hardly dare her breath to hear, 

Lest she disturb the spirit that indwells 

The oak, the bubbHng spring, the lonely weir, 
Or skims high woodlands like a star in fear; 

The Hamadryad's lightest lisp she heard. 
As it would vanish on a gossamer. 

And oft she caught and kept its dying word. 



98 iPHIOmiA AT A VLIS, 

Lxxn. 
The women of each yillage hugged her path, 

"With babe at breast and children at the dress, 
A kindly look and speech for all she hath, 

Their husbands were at Aulis in the stress. 

And they could see ahead long wretchedness; 
True wives, they sent by her some word or token, 

To those they loved, whom they in faithfulness 
Must give for that one wife whose faith was broken. 

Lxxin. 
Past Ephyre's high breast she quickly rides, 

Whose city lies between Poseidon's knees, 
Wliile Aphrodite's foam laves both its sides. 

And Acrocorinthus halts the stirring breeze. 

Until it swoons away amid the trees 
To soft Idalian kisses round a shrine; 

Through that lax luscious air the maiden flees, 
And touches not her Up to Corinth's wine. 



(JANTO IL 99 

LXXIV. 

She rests not till she comes unto the bound 
"Which sends her high up to a mountain land, 

Where ancient fable sported with the sound 
Of sweetest minstrelsy, or chanson grand, 
Hymning the mighty gests of Hero's hand. 

One path she shuns where Theseus of yore 
With stolen Helen fled along the strand, 

The Trojan deed presaging long before. 

LXXV. 

From heights she passed into a fruitful dale, 

Which fluttered everywhere with silyery leaves 
Of OHves, changing sunlight to a pale 

Moonlight that with the treetops interweaves; 

Like sobbing heart afar the orchard heaves; 
Women are there culling the fruit alone, 

Yet each looks up at passing team, and leaves 
Her task awhile to think of some one gone. 



100 IPHIGENIA AT AULI8. 

LXXVI. 

To plain of Ceres then the maiden drove, 

Where the broad land springs into yeUow corn, 

At hidden tender touch of Goddess' love, 
As if out of the earth the golden morn 
With a new sun were of a sudden born; 

O'er all was felt the sacred mystery 

Of man, who also springs from night forlorn 

To day, till he again in night shall lie. 

LXXVII. 

Through many a grove of plaintain and of myrtle, 

Over Kephissus' gentle element, 
To voice of nightingale and Attic turtle. 

Mid strains of seas and skies and mountains blent, 

Royally into Athena's town she went; 
From Pallas' hill she looked far on the sea, 

Unto its very bound her glance she sent. 
And saw the empire there which was to be. 



CANTO 11. 101 



The Muses sang around lier tlieii* o\sti rule, 

As she did loiter on their sacred hiQ, 
Where was intoned the note of every school 

Which hath through Time's deep bosom sent its thrill 

Of harmony- — mind's cunning, hand's sHU; 
Then looked she to the East and saw the proud 

High threat the Greek hoiizon darkly fiU, 
But soon the Attic sun smote through the cloud. 

LXXIX, 

Over the radiant hills to Marathon 

She darts as if she held Apollo's ways, 
There on a plain she saw that Attic sun 

From skies descend transfigTired in a blaze, 

Which aU the earth illumined with its rays; 
A Httle village glowed within the sunset crest. 

As drew to end the greatest day of days, 
And turned down Grecian hiUs into the West. 



102 IPHIGENIA AT AULI8. 

LXXX. 

Another note was sung in Marathon 

IVIid golden cornfields leaping from their grave; 
She stopped along the sea when day was done, 

She heard the never-ending waters rave, 

And thought, Will Asia ever cross this wave 
To Greece, as now to Troy we Grecians go ? 

Such deeds bring forth their like however brave, 
Oh where shall break this endless chain of wo ! 



Ll 

She came to Khamnus, town of ancient fane, 
The home of Nemesis, the Goddess hoar 

Whose blow requites on man his action's bane! 
No rest she found, she quit the temple door. 
And hurried past unto the lonely shore, 

Where of that Titaness she might be free. 
Whose furious word is vengeance evermore; 

Sweet peace she found beside the yielding sea. 



CANTO IL 103 

LXXXII. 

All day her chariot wound about the bank, 
Whose sunny path the whitest pebbles pave. 

To smiling stillness the wide waters sank 
Before the presence of the maiden brave, 
Or rose in ripples mild her feet to lave, 

When she would walk along the beached sea; 
Oft tresses of the Nymphs would float the wave, 

Then melt into the blue transparency. 

Lxxxm. 

As Aulis rises slowly into view, 

She hears the angry bustle of the blast. 

She sees the waves swell up with trouble new: 
And drive within her ken a slivered mast, 
Which breakers smite, till it on land be cast; 

Then reehng ships she spies, which seaman row, 
In secret nooks they huddle all aghast, 

As if to shun a second hidden blow. 



104 IPHIGENIA AT A ULIS, 

Lxxxrv. 
Iphigenia rode in peaceful mootl 

Deeper and deeper to tlie storm's fierce heai-t. 
Where lone within his tent her father stood, 

Whose tears at sight of her began to start, 

And ashen quiverings of pain to dart 
Thi'ough chorded limbs, tense in the bitter strain; 

Then would he he seek supj^ression of the smart. 
Grow calm apace, till tears fell down again. 

LXXXV. 

"What is it that so pains thee, father dear? 

What winds are those I heard not long ago? 
I see that thou ai-t struggling with a tear, 

Those blasts still threaten as they whirl and blow 

Far out upon the sea, where now the j go ; 
Their biting edge I touched upon my way. 

Still I in thee can feel their afterthroe; 
What is thy sorrow? Let me its pang allay. 



CANTO IT. 105 

LXXXVI, 

While yet she spake, the captains one by one 

Dropped in to speak a word unto the chief; 
They viewed the maid who soon all hearts had won, 

Yet not by love like Helen, but by grief; 

Fair words they spake of deep regard but brief, 
They felt the awe, and in her look could see 

AU time before them pass, like falling leaf, 
Which drops to earth, and leaves the heavens free, 

Lxxxvn. 
Achilles, too, had sought the Leader's tent, 

To bid a grim good-bye to chieftains there; 
He looked upon the maiden's face, he went 

Not forth, but on him settled unaware 

A distant view of something more than fair, 
Than Honor worthier, higher than Glory, 

He wandered with it far up in the air. 
While it to him alone told all its story. 



106 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

Lxxxvni. 
He said unto himself: '*I now must change, 

Old Cheiron never could have taught me this. 
He never could have shown the vision strange 

Now shown by simple maid, a little miss, 

"Whose lips, methinks, I could forever kiss; 
To me her glance is more than Helen's glance. 

Henceforth its guidance I shall not dismiss. 
Its spell may yet my deepest houi's entrance." 

LXXXIX. 

Then Calchas came he scarce could his moan. 
He hinted that he had a word to say apart. 

And when he spake unto the maid alone. 
The parting of his lips cleft to his heart: 
"I must speak forth the word with all its smart: 

That ill winds cease to blow, and fair ones rise 
To bear the Grecian fleet to Troy, thou art 

To be to Artemis the sacrifice. " 



CANTO n, 107 

xc. 
"That Helen may be saved, tliou art to die, 

The pure Diust give itself for tlie distained, 
It is the world's last law, which to defy 

Is breach for which the man will be arraigned 

Before that court where justice is not feigned; 
Shun wrong of shirking what is on thee laid; 

Innocence lost by guilt, is then regained. 
When the pure soul its offering is made. 

xci. 
"In Troy's own wickedness we Greeks ai-e sti'ong; 

The Goddess now demands our highest m^eed; 
Then only may we right the Trojan wi'ong. 

When we ourselves the way to right may lead; 

We can avenge another's wrongful deed, 
Not till that deed out of our heart is burned; 

Never can we take Troy till we are freed 
Of Troy's own guilt, and to ourselves returned. 



108 IFHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

'xcii. 
"From Zeus supreme comes down one great behest 

That good men owe themselves unto the bad; 
Else were they hardly good, and never blest 

Through that high suffering that pure and glad 

Maketh all hearts by making them so sad; 
From Helen's beauty thou wilt bear the prize, 

Thy land in thee its rescue will have had, 
And the whole world in thee its sacrifice." 

xcni. 
So spake the holy Priest, a noble man, 

AVho wi'ought not for himself, for all he wrought; 
The Future in the Now he well could scan. 

That which must be forever was his thought. 

And that was what he to his people taught; 
Yet truest Greek he was, most true of all. 

What Hellas was to Time itself he sought. 
Not to the East he looked, not to Troy's fall, 



CANTO IL 109 

XCIV. 

But in the West lie saw futuritj^ 

Grow out the deed of heavy suffering, 
Saw a new world rise out the farthest sea, 

And a new Hellas in it upward spring, 

And to mankind afresh its blessing bring; 
Far-off dim visions and blest auguries, 

Snatches of song he heard the poets sing, 
Hymning in ages late the sacrifice* 

xcv. 
His was no cruel speech but tender grace, 

With every word his own great heart was rent, 
And if he could, he would have ta'en her place, 

For her endured the bitter punishment; 

Into her sorrow was his soul so blent 
That she could nought but his sweet presence bless, 

As his strong thought into her breast he sent 
Armed with his pity and tender-heartedness. 



no IPHIGENIA AT AULI8. 

XGVI. 

Thus siglied she answer to the holy Priest: 
" Oh must I die, who love laij life, so young ? 

And must I now be slaughtered like a beast 
At the blest shrine to whicli I oft have clung, 
'When with the pain of Hf e I have been stung ? 

Have mercy on me, Goddess, hope is spilt — 

The howling winds through all the shores have sung 

The strain of vengeance for some hidden guilt. 

XCVII. 

"But ah! the more men need to be set free; 

If they were guiltless, they no help would need; 
What is life good for, but to give it thee ? 

To keep it for myself is but a greed, 

To yield it up makes of it fruitful seed; 
Here take it, I give the last of earthly joys. 

This bloom tear from my cheek, and let me bleed, 
Guide me to the altar's ax — it is my choice. " 



CANTO 11. Ill 

xcvrn. 
Achilles came and looked, a changed man, 

He hears what he before had never heard; 
He saw his life anew and made its plan, 

To bitter sacrifice he too is stirred 

By that sole thrill of tender maiden's word; 
His mien superb becomes her humble thraU, 

Now his heroic sword he will engird, 
To fight not for his glory, but for all. 

xcix. 
"Ah me ! I know I am shoi-t-lived by fate, 

But I prefer to die as thou shalt die; 
If I should stay at home I might live late, 

And pass my days without a single sigh; 

But I shall equal thee in destiny, 
And give myself in bond to sharpest wo, 

For thee I shall my very wrath deny. 
Be placable to. friend, and e'en to foe." 



112 IPHIGENIA AT A ULTS. 

c. 

So thought Achilles then, when he had seen 
In wonderment of love that spii'it staid; 

But on the Trojan plain in quarrel keen 
Hereafter will forget the vow he made, 
And turn to wrath that will not soon be laid, 

Unmindful of his couniry, friend, and cause, 
For vanished is the image of the maid; 

Dark lines through his bright fame a Fui-y draws. 

CI. 

Yet memory of her afresh wiU live 

When he doth weep o'er dear Patroclus slain: 
He rueful will his Grecian foe forgive, 

Now softened by the mighty mass of pain; 

Yet to forgetfulness wiU fall again 
And her sweet image blot in Trojan strife; 

Then wiU compassion cleanse at last that stain, 
And give to Priam old both son and Hf e. 



CANTO IL 113 

CII. 

Rumor went buzzing through the gathered Greeks, 

It told the sacrifice of high degree, 
"Whose blood would end delay of many weeks, 

And bring fair winds upon a tranquil sea, 

Yet fetching too the fierce fatality. 
Their hearts were torn, it was a time of wail, 

Low words they moaned of crushed anxiety. 
That day all wished the fleet might never sail. 

cm. 
Still the Euboic hills detained the sun, 

Who threw upon their peaks his last of light 
For that one day, and then his course was done; 

In silence flew the silken wings of night. 

To brush out of the skies the cloudlets bright. 
And tinted films hung high on heaven's way; 

Then sank into the mist the mountain height, 
And twilight poured its flood on Aulis' bay. 



114 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS, 

CIV. 

Meantime, tliey bore the maiden to the shrine, 
Which lay upon a knoll within a wood; 

There Calchas led her through a weeping line 
Of massive men, who round her pathway stood, 
To see the highest worth of womanhood; 

The hearts of all bui'st out in tearful rue. 
As they beheld in her what was the gc^od, 

And made the vow to her they would be true. . 

cv. 
The fair white fane of marbled Artemis 

A smile into the twilight seemed to throw ; 
From its fond pillars flowed a silent kiss 

Which showered love around the deed of wo. 

As there in flight of stone she grasped her bow 
To save a fleeing fawn from savage chase ; 

She touched the- arrow in a sacred glow, 
The very marble ht up in her face. 



CANTO II 115 

cvi. 
Within tlie door the mpiden disappears, 

A cloud descends and fills the holy space, 
And for a moment sheds its gentle tears, 

TiU every leaf and grass-blade in the place 

Hath on it one pure drop of sorrow's grace, 
And bends to let it f aU upon the gTound, 

Which swallows it at once and shows no trace, 
Though leaf and grass, freed from the weight, rebound. 

cvn. 
But soon with ragged rent is pierced the cloud. 

And through it looks the silver-shining moon, 
Which softly strokes the melancholy crowd, 

And to a music sweet doth them attune, 

While they quite sink away into its swoon; 
It drives far off the night with the dark cloud, 

And out the air into her lunar noon 
The Goddess stepped at once and spake aloud: 



116 IPHIGENIA AT A ULIS. 

cvni. 
" Thy time is full, thee have I come to save. 

As promised in Mycenae from my shiine; 
Men say I in revenge thy Ufe must have, 

Because thy father slew with heart malign 

The guiltless fawn he knew I loved as mine; 
But no ! the Goddess must not vengeance pay. 

Not death for death can be the law divine. 
Though he slay mine, his shall I never slay. 

cix. 
" The Gods must not revengeful be to man, 

Else they wiU not escape his penalty; 
The Gods must also learn, and learn they can, 

To give up hate, and turn to charity, 

Whereby alone we Gods are whole and free. 
The Greeks shall deem thee dead, with grief be racked, 

But sacrifice they shall hereafter see, 
And find the richer blessing for thine act." 



CANTO IL 117 

ex. 

« But to myself I shall now rescue tliee, 

I, the mild Goddess dare not take thy blood; 
Thee shall I bear away to Barbary, 

There in a land remote to do the good, 

Anew the offering for a multitude 
Vaster than all on earth, to be now found; 

The world, all time thy deed will yet include, 
Far wilt thou pass beyond the Grecian bound. 

CXI. 

" This hour auspicious gales begin to blow, 

Helen, the erring one, is to retiu-n, 
The armament shall crush the Trojan foe 

Through deed of thine to-day, which men will burn 

To imitate, and from a maiden learn 
To offer life for land and family; 

With Helen home, thou too wilt homeward turn, 
And Greece once saved, is saved again by thee." 



118 IPHIGENIA AT A ULIS. 

cxn. 
The moon lias fled with night, and timid rays 

Of rosy dawn into the heavens rise; 
While in the woods a godlike presence prays, 

Soft hymns of triumph float up to the skies. 

Bearing aloft a world of harmonies; 
The Greeks msh to the fane to hear the word. 

The ax unbloody on the altar lies, 
The maid is gone, and naught of her is heard. 

CXIII. 

Astonied they all stand at plan divfne. 
But see, there is another wonder new: 

The fawn that dead was lying at the shrine, 
Rose up to sudden life before their view, 
And to its perfect strength at once it grew ; 

Unharmed through all the gazing crowd it flees, 
No stains upon the grass it now doth strew, 

And soon from sight is lost amid the trees. 



CANTO IL 119 

CXIV. 

A wave of silent sorrow sways the host, 

No heart so dumb but feels the common pain; 

They would have spared her death at any cost, 
But felt somehow it was her gi'eatest gain 
And theirs, to die for them without a stain; 

A universal tear doth make them one — 
One people now, and ready to be slain; 

By that sole maiden's deed it has been done, 

cxv. 
'* This law of deity each man must find, 

Sorrow alone can purify the heart, 
And make it deeply one with its own kind. 

Whereby in all it feels its own keen smart; 

Charity then comes and draws the dart, 
Compassion cures, yet is the child of pain; 

The Gods give first a loss, in loving part, 
Whereby to give in turn a greater gain." 



120 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

CXVI. 

Tlius Calchas first tliat solemn silence broke, 
As in deep thought he out the wood did wend. 

And to the people round him further spoke : 
" 1 thought the maiden's death to be the end 
To which the Goddess did her power bend ; 

But I the priest must learn a lesson late 

Through this dear girl, that Gods must not offend 

By vengeance, but be themselves compassionate." 

CXVII. 

Then Palamedes spoke, the rightful man: 

"I too have learned the lesson of this day, 
And a new glimpse have had into the plan 

Of Zeus who over all doth bear the sway; 

In pride of right I spurned the castaway, 
I thought myself so good, her not t'endure; 

I change, I go to Troy for Helen, and pray. 
For the distained may there I die the pure." 



CANTO II 121 

cxvin. 
AH Grecian hearts are beating to one throb, 

They are one wave of vast humanity, 
With undertone of sigh or secret sob, 

That breaks up from that sympathetic sea; 

Silent is glory and moral vanity, 
Assembhes are not needed, there is heard 

An inner voice of last authority. 
Which every man obeys without a word. 

cxix. 
They go down to the beach in quietude, 

The waters rest in calm transparency 
Reflecting hill and cloud in peaceful mood; 

They go into a thousand ships which lie 

Upon the bay beneath the tranquil sky, 
They touch the pictured deep with muffled oar. 

The silent tear to Hellas says good-bye. 
And drops at thought of seeing it no more. 



122 IPHIGENIA AT AULIS. 

cxx. 
Yet -witli a heavier sorrow they are fraught, 

A deeper loss than Helen's fills the host, 
Each soul within the fleet has this one thought. 

What's Helen saved with Iphigenia lost ? 

What recompense is greater than the cost ? 
Unless there be some other restoration 

Undreamt by Greek, beauty the uttermost 
Will never save itself nor save the nation. 

cxxi. 
Again the feeling winds begin to blow, 

Not now with vengeful whistle of a squall. 
But piping a delicious music low 

That drives the fleet to its soft tuneful fall. 

Whose long melodious beats the oars enthrall, 
Yet underneath a note of sweet distress 

Sings in the winds, and tunes the souls of all 
To tender grief akin to blessedness: 



CANTO II 123 

cxxn. 
" Oh let us sing our song, our farewell song ! 

We too, the blasts, are conquered by the maid; 
However long we blow, however strong, 

We in that harmony of love are laid. 

To which the Gods serene the world have made ; 
Whatever be the time, the cHme, the creed, 

Be it the king or slave, the due is paid, 
For pain, for gain, we blow to man his deed." 



-^-<j'-» 



CANTO m. 
IPHIGENIA AT TAURIS, 



Far in the north imbedded lies a sea, 
Around whose chilly marge the tempests rave, 

And lash its forests dark of savagery; 
Upon the dreary shore a lonely cave 
Leans down its ragged mouth to touch the wave, 

That sends into the deep recess a moan 
On endless billows, which the lintel lave, 

Or swell to kiss the dome of drooping stone. 



CANTO III 125 



One narrow heaving patli of watery flow 
From Hellas leads unto that far-off place, 

Whereby a Grecian ship would sometimes go, 
And break the silence of the vasty space, 
But soon would flee in fear of savage race; 

Or if the vessel ran into the grot, 

All perished there unseen and left no trace: 

This Tauris was, to Greek a fearful spot. 

III. 
Here was the fane by eldest Titans built, 

With pillars drojDped from gemmed ceilings down; 
Upon its altar human blood was spilt 

Unto an idol there in stony gown. 

An ugly idol with a horrid frown. 
That loved to see the victim in his gore, 

Or watch him in the surges helpless drown; 
The Taurian Goddess she who held this shore. 



126 AGEMEMNON'8 DAUGHTER, 

IV. 

Within the grot asleep the maiden lay, 

Iphigenia, there divinely borne; 
She woke and went to seek the radiant day, 

But saw dim fog-light on a world forlorn; 

The heart dropped in her breast to see that morn, 
No columns wrought upheld in joy her soul, 

She only saw huge rocks by water worn. 
No sunny temple, but a dark, dank hole. 

V. 

.Such was the change from her fair Grecian home, 
No trailing vineyard waved within her look, 

With leaves and vines that over hillsides roam, 
"With Bacchus garlanded along the brook. 
While maids from trees the golden fruitage shook, 

Or did in merry song ripe clusters cull; 
No God or Goddess in each sacred nook. 

In sun-born shape revealed the Beautiful. 



CANTO III 127 

The 0Kv8, pyramid of frait and green, 

Rose not, the very tree of Pallas wise; 
The sunshine came, but not with the soft sheen 

That glows within the liquid Doric skies, 

And falls on sea and land a Paradise: 
No smiling sunlike rays of yeUow corn 

Shot up to greet the glad festivities. 
And wrapped the earth in endless golden morn. 

vn. 
The howl was heard of savage roaming beast, 

Above the endless sough of forest drear; 
Each preyed on each, from largest to the least, 

The lion in his hunt would straggle near, 

His bloody trail would print the stones with fear; 
The falcon in the skies would claw the dove, 

The cruel pard below would tear the deer. 
The eagle clove the hare, then soared above. 



128 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

VIII. 

Wild were the beasts, and wilder yet tlie men; 

Of whom a sudden rout sprang out the wood, 
And huiTied to the fane through tangled fen, 

A shaggy fell hung round the body nude, 

They howled in savage dance and gesture rude, 
While in their midst a prisoner was bound; 

Expecting death, he oft in terror stood, 
Or oft was fiercely dragged along the gTOund. 

IX. 

Yet once from his tormentors he did leap, 
And fled away as fleet as any deer. 

And sprang into the sea far down a steep; 
The maiden looked with sympathetic fear, 
To her at once the wretched man grew dear; 

She hoped he might escape but he was caught. 
Whereat within her eye beat up the tear, 

As she on him and on herself too, thought. 



CANTO III 129 

X. 

Him struggling to that very fane they bore, 

A sacrifice to Goddess there to pay, 
They sav/ what they had never seen before, 

A maiden put herself within their way; 

She bade them not the guiltless captive slay, 
But offered them herself instead of him; 

Blood ceased to flow on Taurian shrine that day, 
And reverence did soften bosoms grim. 

XI. 

Thoas was there, of all that region king; 

He kept his people back by his strong word, 
"When he beheld the maiden offering; 

By her one look his heart was strangely stirred, 

Then by her gentle hand he was deterred; 
Awe seized him, as in her the Gods above 

He saw, and then a deeper note he heard: 
The awe divine began to whisper love. 



130 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTER. 

XII. 

But slie who once was bj tlie Goddess spared, 

She must now others save in that same need; 
Again she dares what she at Aulis dared, 

An offering for her own kind to bleed; 

It is the consecration of her deed, 
Her sacrifice she will henceforth repeat, 

Until it is become her life and creed, 
And every day her death she dares to meet. 

xm. 
She is to tame to peace those bosoms wild, 

And make them lose their mad delight in blood; 
It is her task to put her spirit mild 

Into the very soil whereon she stood. 

And make it bear her image of the good; 
When she the fierce barbarian hath won, 

Vengeance no more shall be his daily food, 
He shall forever do as she hath done. 



VANTO IIL 131 

XIV. 

Still longed she for lier own dear native land, 

The Hellas far away, wliicli had her slain 
In its own thought, yet by divine command. 

When she at Aulis entered Dian's fane; 

But now the long, long years she must remain 
Within this distant savage wilderness. 

Busy until her time he come again; 
Yet could she not the bitter sigh suppress. 

XV. 

"How heavy o'er me hang these leaden skies! 

Oh where is sunshine, where my own fair cKme, 
And its fair works that everywhere uprise 

In splendor on the land and sea sublime ! 

The song and dance of youths in golden prime. 
Labors of men, the sowing of the seed, 

The forms of Gods far looking down on Time, 
The heroes great and the heroic deed ! 



132 AGAMEBINON'S DAUGHTER. 

XVI. 

"It is a gloomy land, a savage brood, 
Wiiere I must pass my youthful holiday; 

The people know nought of the fair or good, 
But from all human feeling turn away, 
They kill themselves, and me perchance A\all slay. 

Yet I have now to change them \>j my life; 
Yes, home is here, I feel, and I must stay, 

And bring a world of peace out of the strife. 

xvn. 
" The time has come, another Greece to make 

In new-born hope spring from this weary wild; 
I shall both for its own and for my sake 

Transform it daily to the image mild 

"Which hath on men from Hellas ever smiled; 
I think the Olive may be hither brought, 

Though of the sunny skies it be the child, 
But surely works of hand may here be wrought. 



CANTO III 13^ 

XVIII. 

"The labors of tlie oxen at the plow 

Are first to tame to peace the savage earth; 

In brotherhood the horse, and sheep, and cow 
Shall gather round the tranquil human hearth, 
And even brutes receive their higher worth; 

This horrent waste I see rise up before 
All others hithei*to in a new birth: 

Will be what Hellas is, it will be more." 

XIX. 

So flashed afar in dreams her shadowy thought : 
More than what Hellas hath she will impart 

Unto that savage folk ; it will be taught 
A deeper Beauty and a holier Art, 
Which is the inner flow of human heaii; 

The people will to nobler regions rise; 

Her deed, her life become their highest part, 

She wiU endow them with her sacrifice. 



134 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

XX. 

The bound of Barbaiy she will transcend, 

And make all Greek beyond the Grecian pale; 

The gentile hate in her will have an end 
When her new spirit shall in love prevail, 
And free the prisoned world from its own jail; 

Old Hellas too, will share her blessing great, 

The distant threat she sweeps from hill and dale. 

For the Hellenic land she breaks down Fate. 

XXI. 

And there she stayed for twenty years 

With that sole purpose in her sincere breast; 

She moved through troubled seas of hopes and fears, 
Still on she went in faith with all her zest. 
And never failed to think and do the best; 

The people came to see her from afar, 

They went away ^vith her high soul possessed. 

And to her looking up as to their star. 



CANTO IL 135 

XXII. 

The noisome grot slie turned to temple fair, 
With columns white that stood along the seas, 

And saw their limpid beauty imaged there, 
With wavy architrave and flowing frieze, 
And sculptured shaj^es of liquid deities; 

The ugly idol rose no more to view. 

The Taurian shrine no bloody death decrees, 

The Goddess is herself transformed too. 

xxin. 
With her are all the Gods of Greece transformed 

Into fresh founts of mild beatitude. 
By a new inner sun their looks are warmed, 

Not now the horrid Taurian monster rude, 

Whose stony frown was with cold death bedewed, 
But sweet Greek Artemis is throned above. 

The Goddess who refused the maiden's blood. 
And looked beyond Olympus, seat of Jove. 



136 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXIV. 

Demeter too, sought in tliat laud a home, 

"Where she could sow broad-cast her loodful seed. 

Which springs on heights or low in valleys loam.. 
"Wherewith she might the teeming millions feed, 
And no one in her bounty suffer need; 

The cattle grazed on every hill in peace, 

Thi'ough endless plains of pastui-e roamed the steed, 

The mother Eai'th gave forth her full increase. 

XXV. 

And all the land was filled with gardens sweet, 
Wliich Pallas made her favored dwelling place; 

WTiere stood fail* boys of bronze that moved their feet, 
And steeds of stone that ran the swiftest race, 
And tripods moving to and fro with grace; 

Within each brazen breast there breathed sweet life, 
The fiercest struggle calmed in marble face. 

That told the Greek and the Barbarian strife. 



CANTO III 137 

XXVI. 

The maiden taught the labors of the loom, 
In v/hich her own strange life she deftly wove, 

Her youth's deep dream, and then her sudden doom; 
Her web could tell how the gTeat heroes strove, 
Eeveal the deed of wrath, the deed of love, 

Her Taurian life she did therein unfold. 
How it flowed on within the plan of Jove : 

In gold and purple threads the tale was told. 

XXVII. 

She tells anew the Grecian histories, 

The mighty gests of great Bellerophon, 
Yet coupled vv^ith the saddest destinies, 

How highest action holds the deepest groan, 

And greatness is but suffering alone; 
The Hero vanquished monsters of the East, 

And made the fair Hellenic world his own, 
Then senseless roamed the field as any beast. 



138 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTER. 

XXVIIL 

She tells tlie fairest story of the sea, 

Of ship that bore the princely Ai-gonaut; 

She lapped the tale in folds of poesy 

More rich than all the gold the vessel brought, 
Yet with her own deep store of wisdom fraught; 

Barbaric minds now build that ship of Greece, 
Which newer Colchian treasures f tuiher sought, 

And bore to their own laud the Golden Fleece. 

XXIX. 

But of the many wondrous tales she told, 
The chief was legend of stout Hercules, 

The mighty darhng of romances old, 

Who had to labor through all lands and seas, 
Until the earth of his fierce foes he frees; 

He drained the bog, the mountain way he rent, 
He turned the fivers, felled the forest trees, 

Through him this earth was made man's instrument. 



CANTO III 139 

XXX. 

The wildest beasts, the wildest men he tamed, 
When Greece her wilderness began to shed. 

And the first law for human dwelHng framed; 
But when he oyer every land had sped. 
And bravely freed it of its monsters dread, 

He must descend to Hades, free it too, 

Of its damned dog, which guards the gloomy dead; 

Both worlds, above, below he must pass through. 

XXXI. 

To the Barbarians the myth she sings. 

Which they take up and sing in theii' own tongue 
Through aU the distant realms of icy kings, 

Beside the northern seas, and up among 

The frosty blasts, whence Boreas is flung 
Upon the South, where scarce the sun wiU shine; 

Deep unknown rivers float the strains there sung, 
And bards chant from the Danube to the Rhine. 



140 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB, 

xxxn. 
The Getans of the farthest Dacian plain 

Catch up the echo of Hellenic lay, 
And warp and weave it in their Gothic strain, 

That floats beneath the Hypeborean day, 

And wraps itself in misty folds of gray, 
Far, far beyond the sunny Ionian skies. 

Where now Europa sleeps her time away, 
And where in might hereafter she will rise. 

xxxm. 
In magic spell of strange barbaric measures 

Are hymned those antique fables never trite; 
And all the storied world of Grecian treasures 

Is richly there inlaid with fancies bright, 

That flash and soar in new poetic flight. 
Though they still keep their first Hellenic soul; 

The ancient germ doth now unfold to light, 
And its deep hidden wealth in time unroll. 



CANTO TIL Ul 

XXXIV. 

A weird spirit entered in the word, 

Which danced as if possessed and sparkled round; 
And by some harmony most deeply stined, 

It wooed another like itself in sound, 

Until the happy pair were linked and bound; 
So word would chase another word to kiss, 

In many strains of love they locked and wound, 
And gave to man a foretaste of his bliss. 

XXXV. 

Through aU that wilderness sang Helen's story, 
In sweet melodic concords of the rhyme, 

And builded up afresh in ancient glory, 

Though now transplanted from its Grecian clime, 
And moving to another tune and time ; 

The very sounds of it were wont to wed. 
As winged with Eros, they uprose sublime. 

And glowed in raptured flight with passion red. 



142 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 



It melted to its tlirill tlie wildest heart, 

Which felt the honeyed spell of that great love, 
And felt the i^ain, which was its other part, 

Sent down on guilty pak from Gods above; 

The human deed inside the mil of Jove, 
With all the strains of noble minstrelsy. 

In one vast strand of destiny was wove; 
That guilt, to be o'ercome had first to be. 

XXXVII. 

Far on the air resounds that song of songs. 
Through all the spacious realms of Barbary, 

It flames the hearts of Bards, who rise in throngs, 
To sing that lay of deep fatality. 
And then the still more deep recovery; 

It is the eternal song which they must sing, 
They hymn in it their own true history. 

What Time has brought and will forever bring. 



CANTO IIL 143 

xxxvni. 
The lay of Helen far resounded then, 

And still resounds afresh through all those lands; 
It Aveaves its magic chain in souls of men, 

And holds them tranced in its fine golden bands 

Which seem to grow to be life's very strands; 
The oldest song and yet the latest too. 

It bears the human and divine commands, 
True in that elder world and in this new. 

XXXIX. 

Ah me, could I but catch one straying shred 
Of that high strain and fix it in my line, 

As it comes floating down to music wed, 
I, the barbaric singer, might now shine 
And call my sisters all the Muses nine. 

But one is born too late, aye, or too soon; 
, *T is all the same, without the light divine, 

To watch at night or go to bed at noon. 



144 AGA3IEMN0N'S DAUGHTER. 

XL. 

The maiden teaches a yet nobler lay — 

It is the lay of Helen's restoration 
Through her own sacrifice, upon that day 

When she dared offer life for the salvation 

Of the lost woman and the lost nation; 
Through that high deed was broke the future path 

Whereon man travels to his godlike station, 
And with him bears the world from its own wrath, 

XLI. 

And deeper still and warmer flowed the stream, 

The tuneful stream of song in pulses great, 
Which all the wilds to clear away did seem. 

And cleanse the savage heart of all its hate; 

It was the song of maiden dedicate 
In barbarous Tauris now as once in Greece; 

It hymned her life supreme, there consecrate 
That world as well as Hellas to release. 



CANTO IL 145 

XLH. 

She shows how each is to regard the other, 

Deeper than difference is unity, 
The man is to behold in man his brother. 

And bind him to himself in kindred tie; 

Hers is the golden word of charity, 
Which stops the hate of men, the war of nations, 

\^'hich melts to one the human family, 
And interlinks the future generations. 

XLIII, 

Many a Grecian man she did there save 

From wretched wreck along the rugged coast, 

When he had strayed too far upon the wave; 
She heard of sack of Troy by Argive host. 
And wanderings of Greeks by tempest tossed; 

But she was deeply filled with other thought: 
Greek or Barbarian, if he were lost. 

In one great deed of love to save she sought 



146 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XLIV. 

And then she would transform him to her life, 
She lights herself into the hearts of all, 

Whereby she puts an end to mortal strife 

'Tween East and West where stands the Trojan wall, 
"WTiich she will take, not by the city's fall, 

She will no lands lay waste, no towns destroy. 
She give both sides her image magical, 

W^ith it she takes, and thereby saves old Troy. 

XLV. 

Band after band of priestesses she trained, 

"Whom to the deepest wilderness she sent; 
Of hardship, toil, and death they never plained. 

They spui-ned their home and welcomed banishment; 

For savage man and child their hves w^ere spent. 
To whom they bore the lamp of their great school; 

Into the frozen, fiery zone they went, 
And bui'st upon the shore of farthest Thule. 



CANTO III 147 

XLVI. 

They stood beside the broad Atlantic seas, 

Whose waters measureless seemed their last bound; 

But soon to land of far Hesperides, 

They crossed the wave, where a new world was found, 
And they at once began to break the gTound; 

Through wilder, vaster forests on they went. 
O'er mighty rivers, till they made their round, 

And spanned with bridge of light a continent. 

XL VII. 

These women were the greatest conquerors, 
Theii's, too, the lasting victoiy has been. 

Though it was never gained in cruel wars, 
The bloody cutting sword was not their mean, 
They used a brighter weapon and more keen. 

Their mind it was by which this deed was done; 
They wrapped the earth in zones of mental sheen, 

To make the wide world one and keep it one. 



148 AGA3IEMN0N'S DAUGHTER. 

XLVIII. 

How all tliat people loved her, called lier blest! 
Her as a Goddess they would fain adore, 

She ever called up in them what was best; 
King Thoas was the man who loved her more 
Than any other on the Taurian shore; 

A noble man, and a yet nobler king, 
. Of ruler's virtues he possessed the store, 

He sought like her to be an offering. 

XLIX. 

The days roll on, the mighty years roll on, 
Devotion in him suffers a slow change. 

No longer awe of her religion 

He feels, but to a transformation strange 

He falls, which doth his life and hers derange; 

The king now loves her with a lover's love. 
Into his bride he will the priestess change. 

And from her maiden destin}^ will move. 



CANTO TIL 149 



Still she doth long for her far native land, 

To her Greek folk she knows she must return, 
They are to be made free by her own hand 

Erom Trojan strifes, from Fates and Furies stern; 

The Greek in thought has slain her, and must yearn 
Her once again in his own world to see; 

All Hellas has through her anew to learn 
To be transformed as well as Barbary. 

LI. 

Helen they have restored with mighty arm; 

A deeper restoration must be won, 
Which Iphigenia brings without a harm; 

She teaches them to do what she has done, 

Her double sacrifice they must not shun, 
The vengeful must to heli)ful heart be turned, 

Then is Greek wrong to her for aye undone, 
Her image is into their bosoms burned. 



160 AGEMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

LII. 

In royal suit she day by day is pressed, 
Which she must meet by craft, a trial new 

That bears the deepest discord in her breast; 
Her heart by double duty cut in two 
She feels; to Truth the first she must be true, 

Yet to her mission true ; if she deceive 
The King, it will her very life undo, 

Yet her last destiny she cannot leave. 

Lm. 

Suspicion darkly broods in high-born breast, 
The King begins to change his confidence ; 

The burden of his heart gives him no rest, 
In every act of hers he sees offence. 
Even her good he notes as insolence, 

The savage, long suppressed, begins to burn. 
To cruel thoughts are changed his new intents. 

To ancient Taurian times he will return. 



CANTO III 151 

LIV, 

One day lie sends his trusty messenger, 

Demanding answer to be brought forthright; 

Again she seeks her pretext to defer, 

And turns her step to hasten out of sight 
Into the fane, when suddenly in might 

The King appears, and wrathful to her speaks; 
As if he had a battle there to fight. 

His eyes iiash vengeance which the savage ^vl'eaks: 

LV. 

"Thy subtle Grecian craft will do no good, 
Thy answer on the morrow I must have; 

For thee I stopped the flow of human blood, 
I from the gory altar did thee save 
When savages did fiercely round thee rave, 

I made thee greatest power in my state, 

Thy power through the world I to thee gave : 

But now I feel my love turn into hate. 



152 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LVI. 

" The wild man's heart once more begins to rise. 

My deadly foe shall be again the Greek, 
Vengeance comes back, within I hear its cries 

To rash its claws into thy visage meek; 

Thy labors to undo is what I seek. 
Ingratitude I shall re-pay to thee, 

A maddened savage I revenge shall weak. 
This altar's victim now thou art to be." 

LVII. 

In rage he turns away, she doth appeal 

Once more unto the Goddess at her shrine: 

" High Virgin, thou who didst in light reveal 
Thyself to me, and take me to be thine, 
Didst make thy very ministry be mine. 

And promise me return to my dear land. 
Me, fragile bearer of thy plan divine, 

Oh help me execute thy high command. 



CANTO IIL 153 

Lxin. 
** Like Helen let me not from thee be taken, 

A^^ose lot Dardanian now threatens me; 
^lust I from thee, Protectress, turn forsaken, 

To Aphrodite given o'er, to be 

In foreign land held in captivity? 
Another Trojan war, yet far more dread, 

More stained with Grecian blood I can foresee, 
And in that war I shall return, but dead. 

LIX. 

**Thou Goddess chaste, to thine own love enthrall 
This noble man's still savage love, I pray, 

^\^iich seeks me for itself and not for all, 
Immortal thou beam out my mortal clay, 
That he through passion rise to thy clear day. 

Be not barbaric Tauris doomed like Troy, 
Let not good Thoas cast his gain away, 

And by enslaving me himself destroy." 



154 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

LX. 

A^Tiile thus she prayed, far out at sea a ship 

Was seen to struggle through the plunging wave ; 

Deej:) in the watery chasm it would dip, 

Then from the top of highest surge it di'ave, 
Till scarce its keel the madding floods could lave; 

Again would sink and almost disappear, 

Then rise and rear in air from its wet grave, 

While ever to the land it drew anear, 

LXI. 

In steady strife with that wild element 

The oarsmen long had beat the suUen brine; 
But now they many feverish glances sent 

To see what on the shore might give a sign; 

They saw around them rise a walled line 
Of sea-smit rock on which they read their doubt; 

Oft had they heS-rd it was a land malign, 
Still pulled they on, and dared with bosoms stout. 



CANTO III 155 

Lxn. 
From fai'-off Hellas tliey had hither come; 

They took to ship at Aulis, in the bay 
Where many years agone a troubled hum 

Of men would o'er the waters aimless stray; 

But this ship northward cut its lonely way, 
And passed Olympus lofty on the left, 

Where happy Gods dwell in eternal day, 
And of the song and feast are never reft. 

Lxin. 

The ship threads narrow Hellespont, 

Dai'ts through the jaws of fierce Symplegades, 
Where only Jove's swift-flying dove is wont 

To pass, when borne on strong Olympian breeze; 

The ship broke into solitary seas 
Which were begirt with distant unknown world; 

The bonded Euxine felt a strange release, 
And with new life its ancient billows whirled. 



156 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER 

LXIV. 

Two Grecian Youths were sitting on the deck, 
The one did seem to guide the ship in thought, 

His face was graven with a fearful wreck, 

And showed deep netted storm-hnes interwrought 
Into his life, which the rough days had brought, 

The other let no glance turn from his mate, 
Affection overflowed his eyes, yet fraught 

With wearied sorrow, watching long and late. 

LXV. 

One Orestes was, slayer of his mother, 

Whom Furies had at home pursued to rend; 

Pylades, soul sympathetic, was the other, 
He was the Grecian Hero, but as friend. 
Whose heart, not guilt or glory, did him send 

Along with Agamemnon's wretched son. 
Until the frenzied mind might haply mend, 

Or of this life the frantic trip be done. 



CANTO III 157 

LXVI. 

Upon them lay a stern divine command, 
The Delphic God bade them the sister find, 

And said she was detained in barbarous land 
At Tauris, where she kept her fervent mind 
To be restored to her own Grecian kind. 

Apollo's sister Artemis they thought, 

To the wise God's deep meaning they were bHnd, 

But clearest truth from error dark is wrought. 

Lxvn. 
Far had they sailed, and still must onward sail ; 

Where Tauris was, they did not fully know, 
They kept by faith along an unseen trail, 

Until the chilly blast began to blow; 

llie sailors murmured, would no further go, 
Worn by the seas, they ran into the shore. 

Although they should be eaten by the foe, 
They laid down in the sand and quit the oar. 



158 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

Lxvin. 
Not far away a spring flowed down a hill, 

And peacefully did mingle with the wave; 
It was a soft, yet merry buoyant rill, 

Which had a speech as it the stones would lave, 

And e'en of music it would sing a stave, 
Then fade away into a bubbling noise; 

A word in fond low tone it often gave, 
Then in the flow of waters lost its voice. 

LXIX. 

It was of loving Nymphs the favored spot, 
Who the worn stranger with a balm receive, 

And soon refresh him in their shady grot, 
Or in the brook their bosoms to him heave. 
Or sing a strain to which his soul will cleave; 

To foUow up the hiU they lure their guest. 
And with soft notes his footsteps interweave, 

Strike snatches sweet when he sits down to rest. 



CANTO TIL 159 

LXX. 

Both youths went up the brook to fields of grain, 
A garden vast they saw from the high hill, 

The island hamlets flecked the sun-gilt plain, 
In seas of verdure herds were lieing still, 
Or cropped lush grass, or stood within the rill, 

The yellow grain waved into red-barred skies, 
Which sent around the world a tender trill, 

As playing music of that Paradise. 

LXXI. 

Not far away a noble temple stood, 

Which seemed the shining center whence did ray 
All of those glories of sweet plenitude; 

They had to foUow but the nearest way 

To come to where the sunny structure lay; 
They entered it, the landscape's very heart, 

To the divinity therein to pray, 
If it might be appeased to take their part. 



160 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

Lxxn. 
And there within uprose a sacred shrine, 

Near which the priestess stood with kindly glance; 
She seemed to shed on all a hope divine, 

Which would the shyest shrinking heart perchance 

Embolden to its prayer to advance. 
But hark ! she speaks true tones of honeyed Greek, 

Bids them be now at home, and gently grants 
Their dumb request to tell what here they seek. 

LXXIII. 

They answer liquid notes, how sweet the sound ! 

She heard again her dear Hellenic speech; 
Her home, her youthful days, her faith she found 

When she in words heart-born her thoughts could 
reach. 

And could without barbaric discord teach 
What with her eye, what with her soul she saw, 

And in the pui-est mother tongue beseech 
The Gods, without a stammer or a flaw. 



CANTO III 161 

LXXIV. 

But a still deeper music struck a note, 

V/hich tuned the priestess' soul unto one thought: 
**I cannot tell what makes my fancies float 

Far back to childish things which once I sought. 

What hidden spirit hath upon me wrought, 
That I to this sad youth should feel so near ? 

Some destiny hath him unto me brought; 
Kim I must ask about my father dear." 

LXXV. 

She spake to him of Agamemnon then, 

Foreboding by her soul's own magic spell 
That this young man knew of the King of men, 

And could her father's latest story tell; 

That same deep feeling did the youth compel, 
That he her heai't within his own caressed; 

But now her speech dropped on him like a knell, 
Yet he rephed thereto with soul suppressed : 



162 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTEB. 

LXXVI. 

" The mighty leader felled the town of Troy, 
Then safely home into Mycenae came, 

And there his spouse conspired him to destroy; 
She said that he at Aulis was to blame 
That her own daughter bled like beastly game; 

The wife her husband hacked from limb to limb, 
She would blot out in blood his very name : 

As he her daughter slew, so slew she him. 

LXXVII. 

"Years passed away, but vengeance was not stayed; 

The son Orestes up to manhood grew. 
On him the Gods their heavy duty laid, 

The slayer of his father next he slew, 

The mm'deress who was his mother too; 
Justice it was and the divine command, 

She did receive but what was her own due. 
So Clytemnestra feU by her son's hand." 



CANTO III 163 

Lxxvni. 
The priestess softened doomful words in tears: 

"Oh curse of Hellas, horror to the sight ! 
A land of sighs which deepen with the years, 

Where vengeance fiercely reigns and man's despite, 

The kindly human eye is put out quite; 
Nor yet is broke that fatal chain of wrongs; 

Revenge begets revenge — somewhere in night 
The Furies dog Orestes now in throngs." 

LXXIX. 

Therewith the youth in speech convulsive shook: 

"See where they come and fling their snaky hair 
At me; with burning demon eyes they look 

Into my heart and what lies hidden there; 

They sHme the temple's threshold — now they stare — 
Keep off, keep off, I see the clotted stain; 

I did the deed and would again it dare, 
I slew her in revenge for father slain." 



164 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

^ LXXX. 

His eyes turned inward while his body broke, 
He coiled low down into a speechless fit; 

Sad Pylades in tender heart throbs spoke : 
"Again by his own reptile he is bit, 
Not soon, I fear, the spell will intermit; 

He is Orestes, same of whom he told. 

He tries to hide, but ne'er hath hidden it, 

His strong attempt doth but his guilt unfold. 

LXXXI. 

" He often lapsed before in such a swoon, 
When I went with him everywhere as friend; 

His cure were now for me the greatest boon. 
Still I shall with him go unto the end. 
From beast and man and from himself defend; 

When the wild fit comes on, he raves and shrieks 
At the Erinyes, whose serpents send 

The maddening hiss which vengeance wreaks. 



CANTO ///. 165 

LXXXII. 

" Much have we roamed the world in search of cure, 
All Greece we have gone through, no help we found; 

We sought afar the high-hilled fountains pure 
Of healing Nymphs who babble from the ground, 
And Aesculapius who mends each wound; 

All, all in vain; till now my hope was fair, 
While he came hither every hour was sound. 

To him retui-ns disease, to me despair." 

Lxxxni. 
The priestess quick in thought to him replied: 

"Eevenge he takes, revenge him then pursues; 
That house of Tantalus which hath defied 

The Gods, is his; that house would ever choose 

Its own curse first, its blessing would refuse, 
In its own ruin than all foes more strong; 

No heir of it forgives his bloody dues. 
And stops the stream of wrong begetting wrong. 



166 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXIV. 

"From father to the son descends the curse, 

The son gives it anew unto his child, 
And with each gory deed it groweth worse, 

Till human hearts which Help should render mild^ 

Barbaric passion fiUs with rancor wild ; 
The time is come to make the great release 

From vengeance which hath all our land defiled; 
Orestes cure is too the cure for Greece." 

LXXXV. 

Good Pylades in wonder stared, then said: 

"The Grecian Gods for us are powerless; 
When our worn footsteps had to Delphi led, 

Apollo his own weakness did confess; 

The God declared we must ourselves address 
To one who lived in barbarous land, not him; 

But what he meant by that, we co^dd not guess; 
We asked again, he spake new riddles dim : 



CANTO III 167 

LXXXVL 

** 'Bring back from Taurian sliore thy sister dear, 

Whose image there in staiTy sheen doth rise 
Along the Northern seas, where thou must steer; 

It is a sacred image, from the skies 

It fell on Tauris with blest auguries; 
That land was then a dark and savage land, 

She let my sunshine in, now bright it lies, 
And merciful will give a helping hand. 

Lxxxvn. 
" 'Bring back my sister thence, who did not take 

At Aulis once the dark avenging blood; 
Who ancient cruel rites of Goddess brake, 

Wlien guiltless maiden at her altar stood, 

And sacrifice became the doing good; 
Then wiU Orestes be forever healed. 

But he by Furies must be still pursued, 
Until to Hellas whole she be revealed. ' " 



168 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

Lxxxvm. 
The priestess saw at once the God's intent, 

His double word to her was one, and clear; 
She spake in tones of mild admonishment: 

" Blame not the God before thou rightly hear, 

Thy mortal speech is not the speech of Seer 
Or God, which thou wilt never understand 

Until thou see it double, far and near. 
See future and the past knit in one strand. 

LXXXIX. 

"I tell thee now what wise Apollo meant. 

When he from inmost shrine his riddles read: 
I am Orestes' sister, he is sent 

To bring me back to those who think me dead; 

My blood was not upon the altar shed. 
By the God's sister I was saved and brought 

To Tauris here, amid Barbarians dread. 
Whom fair Humanity we both have taught. 



CANTO III 169 

ox. 

" The sisters twain of whom the God hath spoken 
Are we -the mortal and immortal dwell 

Together in a life of deeds unbroken; 
I am the priestess who in word can tell 
The speechless thought the Goddess doth indwell; 

'Tis I who shall return, the image bear 
Of her who venges not, but will dispel 

The hate which Furies nurse into despair." 

xci. 
Not yet was lost the lisp of her last word, 

Orestes woke, and to his feet arose, 
That final heaHng speech of hers he heard 

In trance, which was the end of all his woes, 

To a sweet rest were soothed convulsive throes; 
The new man from his healthy eyes now beams, 

As he up to the holy priestess goes. 
And to her speaks fulfillment of her dreams: 



170 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

xcii. 
" Thou art my long-dead sister, now I know. 

What I at first but felt dim in my heart; 
With me thy lot it is to Greece to go, 

And there to thine own land thyself impart. 

Draw from its raging breast the venomed dart. 
For it is truly mad, as I was mad, 

With hot revenge; it must be what thou art. 
Be cured like me of having what I had. 

xcni. 
" I saw the Furies flee to their dark cave, 

I heard the clashing door behind them close, 
Within the earth's stone bowels let them rave, 

And smite her granit bosom with their blows. 

For I am free forever of their woes; 
Thy word, thy healing word, hath done it all. 

Hath put to sudden flight my fiercest foes. 
And me from frenzy back to life doth call. 



CANTO III 171 

XCIV. 

"Not stony idol set in fane, I see, 

Can be the image of the Goddess true, 
She hath another higher ministry, 

Thou art her holy image, brought to view 

In deeds of hfe, and every day anew; 
Thou dost her worthy form divine reveal 

In freshest bloom of living human hue, 
And poor mankind in helpfulness dost heal. 

xcv. 
"ApoUo's sister I shaU with me take, 

And with the Goddess mine own sister too, 
Both for my sake and for my people's sake; 

As she hath done, are they henceforth to do, 

Yea, she must aU men with her deed endue; 
It is her deed that us of evil rids, 

The Fates shall fly from her as Furies flew. 
She brings to end the curse of Tantalids." 



172 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCVI. 

While thus they talk, another raving man 
With violence into their presence breaks; 

A fit of madness shrieks fr»3m visage wan, 
Fierce grimaces and gestui-es wild he makes, 
Each limb, each muscle in his body shakes; 

Thoas it is, already mad with love; 

But when he sees the Greeks, anew he quakes 

For jealousy, and frights the holy grove: 



" Woman, Fury, thou art my greatest curse ! 

Thou owest me thy life and influence, 
Thy purpose newly planted I did nurse, 

I saved thee from the hand of insolence, 

I calmed to hope thy fleeing, frightended sense, 
I gave thee love, I gave this kingly heart,; 

Now I am scorned by thee, reap but offence, 
And my kind breast is pierced by thy fell dart 



CANTO III. 173 

xcvin. 
"Traitress, ingrate, incapable of love, 

False to thy doctrine, in thyself untrue. 
My good thou dost requite with wrong above 

What demons dare; I know what I shall do, 

For I see other knavish Greeks here too — 
Thy lovers, come to carry thee away; 

On ancient Taurian altar, all of you, 
I shall as pious debt long due, now slay." 

la 

The priestess caught his eye and touched his arm, 
Which, soon unnerved, writhed slowly to his side, 

As if held itself from doing harm; 

His savage lips did quiver, but not chide, 
Her gentleness o'ei'whelmed him in its tide : 

"Oh Thoas, friend— what hast thou done almost? 
A storm thy years of good doth override, 

And oh, methought I saw thee in it lost. 



174 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

c. 

"Thy dark reproach I merit not, oh King; 

Far more than all thee have I loved and thine, 
For thee I have been here an offering, 

My days I have all given at thy shrine, 

My youthful days which will no more be mine; 
If not my body, to thee my soul I give, 

That is my dearest boon, my part divine, 
By which I hope thou ma^^st forever live. 



"To mine own hapless land I am now called, 
To Hellas which me once did immolate. 

Whereby to-day it is to guilt enthralled; 
Barbarian thou hast rescued me from fate. 
And thou must rescue too the Grecian State, 

If I to thee have taught my highest worth; 
Thou wilt anew the priestess dedicate, 

Restoring her to country of her birth. 



CANTO IIL 175 

CII. 

"If thou dost truly love and honor me, 
Thou wilt surrender me to blessedness; 

If what I am, in truth possesses thee. 

Thou wilt pass by thy right, thy sharp distress, 
And thine own sacrifice alone wilt press; 

By keeping me, thou hast me not indeed. 
By sending me, thou hast me none the less, 

This is to thee my last, my highest meed. 

cm. 
"If I may not my native land restore. 

The spirit cries, I shall myself not save; 
If thou detain me on the Taurian shore, 

Thy liberator me thou wilt enslave, 

And thou no liberty thyself wilt have; 
It is my time to go, my time just now. 

As long as the Greek brother is a slave, 
I am not free myself — not free art thou. 



176 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CIV. 

"No family is mine, another law 

Hath claimed me with its strong behest; 

No babe with rosy Ups wiU ever di-aw 
Its life out of the fountain of my breast. 
Or Hsp to me of names the tenderest; 

Of Nature's loss I have to bear the pain, 
And rise uj)on it into duty blest; 

Another motherhood is there my gain." 

cv. 
Barbarian Thoas drops the ruthful tear, 

He has received her final blessing too, 
In giving up what is to him most dear; 

Yet he wiU keep of her what is the true, 

His hasty deed in penitence undo, 
Whereby in him the last dark savage strand 

Is struck from Nature, and his spirit new 
Begs now to bear her to her own dear land. 



CANTO III 177 

cvi. 
And many barbarous peoples thither flock 

From lands whereof no Greek hath yet a notion, 
From East and West, from North new Teuton stock; 

Bound her they roll and rage in grand commotion, 

Yet in her find their soul's most sweet devotion; 
They come, they come from farthest bleakest Thule, 

Where her fair temples bind the edge of Ocean, 
E'en from Atlantis where no King hath rule. 

CVII, 

Europa's children seize the fleeting chance, 

To bring her home and to perfect their deed; 
For they will hers and their own worth enhance, 

When they have to the full re-paid her meed, 

And in their fealty are ripe to bleed; 
When placed again upon her ancient seat, 

She too hath won herself, is truly freed. 
And they, completing her, themselves complete. 



178 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

CVIII. 

More sliips at Tauris now are brought together 

Than in the olden time to Auhs came, 
They had no stress of winds, had no foul weather; 

A greater act, to be of gTeater fame. 

Than hath been yet bound up with Helen's name; 
And the new Gods send gales, not to take Troy, 

Not to avenge in hate a woman's shame, 
Their will is to redeem, not to letroy. 

cix. 
So act these men in noble gratitude 

To her who gave to them what was their best. 
Who changed the jungled earth, the savage rude, 

Into a land and people that were blest, 

Obeying human law and God's behest; 
But now the last and greatest deed is done, 

Return to Hellas is the final test 
Whereby Greek and Barbarian are one. 



CANTO IIL 179 

ex. 
Orestes, tlie mad Greek, his cure lias found, 

The vengeful Furies him no more pursue; 
Thoas, the wild Barbarian, is now sound. 

His jealous wrath is chastened into rue; 

Both men are healed, begin their life anew, 
Their hateful limit they will both erase. 

Both feel their oneness, have one thing to do, 
Both sink down at her feet, and there embrace. 






CANTO IV. 



IPHIGENIA AT DELPHI. 



Around, around we circle hand in hand, 
We rule this Lower World, the Gods we rule, 
We tie up Time itself within our band. 
The human Will is but our tiny tool, 
The man who fights against is the fool, 
In our vast rim of fierce barbaric powers 

This little Greece we bind and press and pull; 
The man, the land, the God, e'en Zeus are ours." 



CANTO IV. 181 

n. 

So sang the Fates, while they kept wheeling round 

In ever-closing curves the Delphic fane, 
In wi'ath they beat the air, they smote the ground, 

Then tightly shut their triple grip again 

To rhythm of a wild tyrannic strain; 
Blent in their song were heard the Furies too, 

Who screamed afar in vengeful sharp refrain 
What they had done, and what they still would do. 

ni. 
"We leave rude Tauris and to Delphi go, 

With triple Fa,tes, we triple share control, 
And with them we one life in twain bestow, 

The outer world of man is theirs, the whole, 

His inner world is ours, we rule the soul 
Within the state of Greece, within the Greek; 

From them, the Fates, the guilty deed shall roll, 
From us, the Furies, comes revenge to wreak. 



182 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

IV. 

The strain arose from Delphic lands high-hilled, 
And flowed adown the sloi)es unto the dale, 

The vineyards and the oHve-groves it filled 
Where men and women echoed all the tale 
In far-heard notes that swung from height to vale, 

They sang it at their work and at their feast, 
They hymned it to the beat of threshing flail, 

And felt its awe from highest to the least. 

V. 

From the Parnassian tops, where Muses played. 
Was floating over land and sea the lay 

Of Fates and Furies to a world dismayed; 
It bubbled out of bright Castralia, 
And dimmed her lucent rill on all its way; 

The Oracle could speak no other word 
Unto the multitude who came to pray. 

And all their hearts were with it deeply stirred. 



CANTO IV. 183 

VI, 

Oh rocky Pytlio, the one soul thou art 

Of this wide Grecian land and of the time; 

Thou sendest thine own breath to every part, 
To touch the hidden chords of this fair clime, 
Wliose thrill sets aU the earth to thy deep chime; 

From out th}^ mountain breast deep-cleft in twain, 
Speaks prophecy with freshest voice of prime, 

And furthest Hellas hears the sacred strain. 

vn. 

Yet many years had Delphi lain untrod 
By heroes who were in the Trojan war; 

But now to land and family and God 

They had returned in spite of adverse star, 
And leaped the human and celestial bar; 

Again they gathered at the Delphic caU, 

Which they had heard resounding near and far. 

To come and hold a mighty festival. 



184 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 



Those Grecian men were fain their grand return 

In that most sacred town to celebrate; 
They had no more in foreign land to yearn 

For wife and home, or haply to await 

On bloody bridge of war the blow of fate; 
A day of joy, yet not without a tear, 

For each had lost what Time could never mate; 
Again heroic shapes from Troy drew near. 

IX. 

The first was Nestor, aged man and wise, 

Whose snowy beard would brush the Delphic shrine, 

As he unto the God gave sacrifice; 

In burning Troy he saw the strifeful sign, 
And homeward fled at once across the brine; 

That city's fall was for his glance the end. 
He would not further probe the ways divine, 

The wiU of Gods he sought not to transcend. 



CANTO IV. 185 

X. 

Next Spartan Menelaus thither came, 

Who wandered long, yet reached at last his home, 
With Helen still his wife, but all men's fame ; 

Far, far into the East he had to roam. 

And cut a path unknown through through salty f oam; 
When he the wiles of Proteus had outdone. 

And through old Egypt's mystic stream had swom, 
He caught beneath all changeing forms the One. 

XI. 

Ulysses, too, at Delphi now appears. 

Though his return w^as farthest of them all, 

He fought and wandered homeward twenty years, 
He saw strange lands and beings magical. 
With giants strove, who sought him to enthrall, 

He passed the Underworld of ghostly forms. 
Where all the shades gave answer to his call, 

Then back to home on earth outrode the storms. 



186 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XII. 

He was the man wlio pried below, above; 

The dear Unknown he made his daily guest, 
With the Impossible he was in love, 

Beyond the ken of men he took his test; 

With bold emprise he plunged into the West-, 
Whose far domains he first of mortals trods, 

Yet on the bound of worlds he cannot rest, 
He seeks to burst the limits of the Gods. 

XIII. 

Oh Chian voice, could I to mine but teU 

As thou to thine his wondrous tale hast told. 
Again would flow the deep Pierian well 

In which are seen the ages to unfold; 

All Time would move as I my leaves unrolled. 
And out my lines would step the man to-day. 

Who to my music would the w^orld uphold: 
But stop — mine is another tale — away. 



VANTO IV. 187 

XIV. 

"With liiin his wife had come, Penelope, 

Hers was the steadfast heart, most loyal, time: 
Yet prudence joined she to fidelity, 

She kept her husband's home and country toOj 

Whereby he ever could return anew; 
Well she deserved with him the equal part 

Of honor now to the most honored due-^ 
The wisest head had paired the ti'uest heaii» 

So gathered round the fane the heroes great. 

Now old and full of silent suffering, 
To hear the past, their deeds to celebrate, 

Some little joy into their lives to brings 

And dull awhile the point of sorrow's sting; 
Their days were full of deep-remembered pain 

Though they had taken Troy and slain its king, 
And had returned to land and home again. 



188 AGAMU3£N0N'S DAUGHTER. 

XVI. 

And e'en the Delphic God was one of those 
Who out the East to Hellas had returned; 

Apollo smote in Troy the Greeks as foes, 

The God had not the trend of Time discerned, 
Yet through his error he his wisdom learned, 

He, though a God, transformed his vast mistake. 
Whereby he had a new devotion earned. 

Him, vnsest God, the Greeks not will forsake. 

XVII. 

Fair maidens soon attuned the merry song. 
And interwove sweet sounds into the dance, 

While in their steps the Graces tripped along, 
At whose dear shapes the eye falls in a trance, 
And to a music seen is blent each glance; 

A stream of mounted youths then overfills 

The wavy slopes that keep the war-steeds prance. 

Far the procession tosses mid the hills. 



CANTO VL 189 

xvm. 
Soft flutes and frantic timbrels mingle joy, 

And fling on breathing air life's anodyne; 
Where now have vanished all the ills of Troy ? 

Ah, wo the word ! what darker, deeper line 

That in the joyful strain doth intertwine ! 
Of Fates and Furies stiU breaks out the hymn, 

To jar the song around the fane divine. 
While o'er the Graces hover goblins grim. 

XIX. 

"Forget us not, we too are in the song. 

Within each Grecian voice and soul we dwell; 
We circle round about each Grecian throng, 

On all the heavy world we cast our spell, 

And Time the echo is of what we tell. 
Hist, Hist ! A foe we scent on Delphic air. 

Low-sounding up the vale we hear a kneU, 
A stranger draweth near, beware, beware." 



190 AGAMEIINON'S DAVGHTER. 

XX. 

The joyous festival had well begirn, 

Wlien lo! a dame moves round the hiding- hill. 
And enters Delphi in the morning sun; 

She wallcs up to the clear Castalian rill, 

And drinks of it and hears its sweetest trill ; 
She turns to pass into the town above, 

Bat first in a deep glance she standeth still. 
Then slowly moves into the sacred gi'ove. 

XXI. 

Who is the lady of the look unknown ? 

Iphigenia — she without delay 
From port of Aulis had set out alone, 

Where she had landed only yesterday, 

And where again a thousand vessels lay, 
Tall ships barbarian, which there did bring 

Her with Orestes o'er the watery way; 
The leader Thoas was, the Taurian King. 



CANTO IV. 191 

XXII. 

Her name none knew, or how she came, or when; 

Nor made she haste her Hneage to say, 
She flitted tlirough the surging crowds of men, 

From every side she heard the bodeful lay 

Of Fates and Furies pierce the holiday; 
In every deed entwined their lurid song. 

Which shot dark threads through colors bright and gay, 
Yet had their counterpart in aU the throng. 

xxm. 
Her sorrow throbbed when she that song had heard 

Tinge with its discord all the Delphic dale, 
Nor could she to herself suppress the word: 

"I see at home these monsters still prevail 

Which once I saw far Barbary assail; 
But there they are put down and sway no more; 

My Hellas hath beneath its joy a wail, 
It is not what it seemed to me before. 



192 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XXIV. 

" I hear but of the vengeful sack of Troy, 
The many men and women slaved or slain; 

The spirit everywhere is to destroy, 

Such deeds, I know leave tinct in man their grain, 
^\Tiat he hath done, comes back to him again, 

The city burnt a wraith of vengeance hath 
Which in the victor's heart will cleave amain. 

And him will smite in turn with his own wrath. 

XXV. 

"I see that in my land I have again to do 

What I at Tauris with the years have done, 
To give my spirit's offering anew, 

Change vengeful father to the gentle son; 

Another Troy must on this soil be won, 
Not by fierce arms or furious conflagration, 

All Ti'oy, the East and West, must be made one 
In helpful deed with the Hellenic nation." 



CANTO IV. 193 

XXVI. 

So moved the woman lone among the Greeks, 
By men unrecognized in her own land; 

To learn the story of the time she seeks, 
From all she hears of Agamemnon's band, 
The mighty deed done on the Trojan strand, 

llie valor bursting red in streams of blood ; 
She feels the war-beat to a fever fanned, 

As round each singer men admiring stood. 

XXVII. 

But soon she caught the fragment of a strain 

That waved the air more meUow than the rest, 
And as she neared the spot, it swelled again, 

And sounded, as it sweetly rose, more blest; 

She stood and looked from a small hilly crest 
Above the shoulders of the Hstening crowd; 

She saw an ancient bard, from whose deep beast 
The tender notes were welling clear and loud. 



194 AGAME3IN0N'S DAUGHTER. 

XXVIII. 

It was the bard who in Mycenae sang 

Long since when she was but a httle maid; 

His deep bass-voice had now a melting pang, 

Round his great thoughts the nimble fancies played, 
As his white beard on toying breezes strayed; 

His winged words agleam would flit the air, 

Like long thin cloudlets thi-ough the welkin frayed, 

Was wirled in passing wind his blanched hair. 

XXIX. 

Thus looked and sang that bard Meonides, 

Who hymned so well the famous Trojan wo. 
Who knew fatality in all degrees. 

As it was stamped on men long, long ago; 

Like him, this singer too had felt the blow 
Of deep-dispensing Gods, for he was blind; 

Yet deeper, purer was the inner flow, 
As he the world more clearly saw in mind. 



CANTO IV. 195 

XXX. 

She slid into the ci-owd and heard the song; 

It sang the wi-ath which stii'i^d Achilles dread, 
When he rose up against a Grecian wrong, 

Done by the King who was the Army's head, 

That wrongful King, it was her father dead; 
The Euler and the Hero caused the strife, 

Whereby not they, but their true people bled, 
And many a gallant chieftain lost his life. 

XXXI. 

Ah, fateful, fuiious was that song of wrath, 

The words of blood poured out the deeds of blood ! 
But a far deeper note the singer hath, 

Which sang Achilles imaging the good, 

Forgiving to his foes in tender mood ; 
The Hero true she saw in him arise, 

Not by the cruel deed, but brotherhood ; 
It was the image of her sacrifice. 



196 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

?;xxn. 
Great was her joy, when in her low disguise 

She heard her act wind through the Hero's lot, 
How he to vision of her life did rise, 

Though oftentimes she was by him forgot. 

And he in mad revenge would slay and plot; 
Still he would soon bethink himself again, 

The Leader he forgave, and then would not 
Slay Priam old for dear Patroclus slain. 

XXXIII. 

The singer struck a newer, sadder strain, 

The piteous tale of Agamemnon's fate. 
How he at home by his own wife was slain, 

How she her hearth with lust did desecrate; 

That story on the daughter's heart-strings ate, 
Of her own mother and her father sung 

To all assembled Greeks, both small and great; 
Her lips turned pale and down her head she hung ; 



CANTO IV. 197 



"Ye Gods ! tlie mighty Leader of the Greeks 
Is butchered like an ox within its stall ! 

Return to home he hath not, which he seeks; 
Instead of it he finds his funeral, 
Just as he steps into his palace hall; 

Return is not for him from Trojan strife, 
Revenge, not Love, sits on Mycenae's wall, 

With broken vows that lap the blood of life. 

XXXV. 

" Oh mother, mother, v/hat a great mistake 

For thee and me thy vengeful lesson was; 
Thou boldly slewest husband for my sake, 

And yet I was not dead, thou hadst no cause 

To overturn the deity's last laws; 
Thus err we, when we take into our hands 

The justice, which the Gods without our flaws, 
In foresight far, dispense to men and lands." 



igg AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

XXXVI. 

More deeply still gobbed Ag-amemnon's daughter: 

" Then such am I, and of such parents born, 
Of parents' parents slain in kindred slaughter I 

Methinks till now I never felt forlorn; 

Oh might I never see to-morrow morn ! 
Can I now change ancestral bloody strands, 

Kelease from Furies* fang the bosom torn, 
Oh can I whiten still these gory hands!" 

XXXVII. 

The bard began a milder lay to sing, 

Which soothed with tender notes her hapless pain. 
It was the lay of her own offering 

At Aulis by the sea, where she was slain. 

Yet saved, that she might do her deed again; 
Lost Helen's restoration there she earned, 

And freedom gave to clear the guiltj^ stain; 
Tlu-ough her deed, too, the Greek has now returned. 



CANTO VI. 199 

XXXVIII. 

The song's deep solace bore her in its flood, 

She felt that she had stemmed her house's guilt, 

And stanched the ever-flowing stream of blood, 
Which, in the time of old Thyestes spilt. 
Had stained each kindred sword from point to hilt; 

But yet more deeply ran the tuneful word: 
A new Greek world, by her to be re-built. 

Had to prophetic strain the bard now stirred: 

XXXIX. 

"I yet shall touch her with this aged hand, 

For I have heard in truth she is not dead, 
But is still living in a far-off land. 

And she on Dian's altar never bled. 

But by the G-oddess she away was led, 
Until the strifeful Trojan time be past. 

And Helen be to home returned who fled; 
Then will she too return to Greeee, the last. 



200 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XL. 

" This last return will be the greatest, best; 

To end of Time she will in Hellas stay, 
I have deep faith it is the God's behest, 

That she no longer shall remain away, 

Who gave herself for all upon that day; 
And some great blessing she wiU with her bring, 

When to Apollo's fane she comes to pray. 
And beai's anew to us her offering." 

XLI. 

" She cannot long be absent from us still, 
I feel the very point of time draw near. 

When she in coming home, wiU aU fulfil. 
And in this Delphic seat she will appear. 
Led by the love of her own people dear; 

All have returned but her, e'en the lost wife, 
Methinks that she already must be here. 

This day, this spot is teUing of her life." 



CANTO IV. 201 

XLn. 
She listened to her piteous fate, but kept 

Within distressful heart the bursting sigh; 
Yet inwardly at her own tale she wept, 

A lonely tear would wander to her eye, 

The silent herald of her sympathy. 
She seemed to think it was another's lot, 

When she beheld the maid at Aulis die, 
That she the sufferer was she quite forgot. 

XLIII. 

Oh woman, woman ! oh thou image truest 

Which sorrow moulds through its long painful stress; 

Only to be compassionate thou knewest, 

Thou didst not know it was thine own distress 
That touched thy soul of self-f orgetf ulness ; 

On thee comes back thy pity's overflow. 

Which always through another must thee bless, 

E'en that thou art not dead, thou scarce dost know. 



202 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XLIV. 

Yet one dark mystery she could not break, 
She saw that she a guilt untold had brought 

On one who was mistaken for her sake; 

Her death to quit the darkest crime was wrought, 
That crime was done but for a phantom thought; 

For her she saw a father slain, a mother stained, 
Fate seemed at last to have her life-thread caught. 

In voiceless wo unto herself she plained: 

XLV. 

"Of being's source to be the enemy, 

The vengeful child to be, though innocent, 
Who whelms both parents to fatality, 

It wraps the Gods in deep bewilderment. 

Oh why have I been darkly hither sent? 
It is the Fates who turn on me their power; 

To their decree I shall at last be bent, 
They come, and I must yield — it is their hour.*" 



CANTO IV, 203 

XL VI. 

" I too must be a link of that long chain 

Which hangs from Tantalus, and ever will; 
To slay mine own and by them to be slain, 

Is the last law which I must too fulfil. 

— No, no; 'tis madness; I shall conquer stiU, 
Transform my bu'th into a source of good, 

I destiny shall weave into my will, 
And g-uilt of Tantalids cleanse from my blood." 

XL VII. 

Meanwhile the crowd rushed to the wall to gaze 
Far down the slope, beyond the Delphic dale, 

Till where the soft Corinthian bosom sways 
On gentle throbbing waves the nodding sail, 
Or heaves on high the reeling bark more frail; 

The silvery sparkle snaps into the view, 
Or flashes out a momentary trail. 

Then vanishes into the billows blue. 



204 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTER. 

Above those azure pulses of the deep, 

Uprearing from the valley rose a train, 
It slowly curled about the mountain steep 

Tlii'ough pointed rocks athwart its pathway lain; 

At times it seemed to grapple might and main, 
As if in mortal wrestle with the way, 

AVhich showed a fierce resistance, but in vain; 
The line kept creeping up, and made no stay. 

IL. 

When it at last had reached the Delphic gate. 
It seemed to turn upon itself and think. 

As if it for a time did hesitate. 

Standing alone with doubt on some deep brink, 
"^A^ich for a moment made the courage sink; 

It would not enter in the sacred wall, 

Smit by some sudden scruple it did shrink, 

Or fear again a hidden guilt or faU. 



CANTO IV. 205 



But yielding soon it came into the town, 
For many voices shouted strong request, 

It marched in still procession up and down, 
All flocked to see who was the novel guest, 
They marked one shape far more than all the rest, 

The dame with penitential, broken eye. 

Which told the sorrowing tale of years unblest; 

She never would look up as she passed by. 

LI. 

It Helen was, who had from Troy retiu'ned, 
Once more in her old Spartan home she dwelt, 

The deepest lesson of the world had learned. 
The sharpest pang of human life had felt, 
The fiercest blow to her own land had dealt, 

And to her spouse, though he had all forgiven; 
To him she hurried and beside him knelt. 

And looked up in his face with rue heart-riven. 



206 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LII. 

The heroes, too, could not restrain the tear 
At such great beauty to such son-ow bound ; 

They wept for her, then* image still most dear, 
And for themselves, who such distress had found, 
And left so many friends cold in Troy's ground ; 

Fell Memory shot deep into the heart 

The look of brothers slain, or starved, or drowned, 

And in themselves they felt the deathly dart. 



The mighty multitude of people wept, 

It would have broken up the festival. 
If fairest Helen had not forward stepped, 

And gave her drug which men Nepenthe call; 

At once it soothed the sorrows of them all, 
At her sweet word they soon forgot their pain. 

In her they saw the rise out of the fall. 
Great was the loss, but greater still the gain. 



CANTO IV. 207 

LIV. 

The tender lines of hidden suffering 

Wove all their saddest story through her face, 

But o'er them other lines would greatly cling, 

Which would the sharp, remorseful thought erase, 
And softly write forgiveness there and grace; 

So could she quench the very grief she made, 

Though trouble gone would leave for proof its trace; 

The guilt had fled, but still had left its shade. 



Out of her life there shone calm penitence. 
With steadfast will her deed yet to atone; 

Though never more she could have innocence. 

She still had something gained for what was gone. 
That to remorse she was not left alone; 

She had for error won the compensation. 

She knew the thorny way, the heart-torn moan, 

And through the lajDse she knew the restoration. 



208 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTER. 

LVI. 

In Troy already slie had often tried 

Her heavy lot of servitude to flee, 
In agony of self-reproach she cried 

That -Aphrodite's thrall she would not be, 

Yet could herself not of the Goddess free. 
She fought within, the Grecians fought without, 

To save her and themselves to liberty; 
Both of their struggles were a ten years' doubt. 



Once Aphrodite to her chamber came, 

"When Paris had been slain, her Trojan spouse, 

And she had willed henceforth to cleanse her blame; 
The Goddess sought desire again to rouse, 
That it might snap afresh her holy vows, 

And promised youth's sweet victory anew, 

With every potent charm Love's zone endows, 

Would give a young heroic husband too. 



CANTO IV. 209 

. LVIII. 

The Goddess tried her far away to lure, 

To distant East, to curse of Babylon, 
Where she would have no struggle to endure ; 

"V\Tiere she could lie forever in the sun 

Which showed no guilt, no deed to be undone; 
But she resisted all that blandishment, 

She did the temple of the Goddess shun. 
And to her soul's own trysting-place she went. 

LIX. 

Yet Memnon found her once, the son of Morn, 
And prayed that he might bear her to the day. 

Far in the Orient where he was born. 

And with him there to shine the early ray 
Which hghtly wakes the world in jocund play; 

But she refused, she would return to Greece, 
Back to her home would walk the prickly way, 

And there work out in sorrow her release. 



210 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LX. 

Then Memnon left, he was the last of all, 
Most brave, most beautiful of Troy's array; 

At once he dashed out of the Trojan wall, 
And fighting fell upon that very day, 
Foreknowing well what in the battle lay; 

As he breathed out his breath, that hour Troy fell. 
Its soul was dead, and in him passed away, 

The Gods departed from its citadel. 

LXI. 

The Greeks rushed in the gate, the city bm-ned, 

The people and the aged king they slew; 
Whom once Achilles' wrath had spared, they spurned, 

The captives' prayer they would not listen to, 

The cry of babes no tear of pity drew, 
Vengeance they showed with all its rage unblest, 

Nor thought that they shall suffer what they do. 
By waking Furies fierce in their own breast. 



(JANTO IV. 211 

LXII. 

The Greeks erelong the wretched Helen found, 

They bore her hastily into a tent, 
With hands and feet in triple cordage bound, 

And in their wrath at once they would have sent 

Her soul to Hades for its punishment; 
But holy Calchas said: "It must not be, 

She hath a sjiirit new, a new intent, 
And of her guilty Hfe she now is free " 

LXIII. 

" She hath her evil deed in full undone. 
She is renewed by her contrition deep, 

And her young days of blamelessness hath won; 
Troy could no longer changed Helen kee]D, 
Yet with her lost it lies a bm^ning heap; 

Home she will now retm-n without a stain, 
Though she the past distress will oft beweep. 

She is restored, is Helen once again. " 



212 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

LXTY. 

So spake the priest of her mid blazing Troy. 

But noAV she comes to seek the Delphic fane. 
To have a share of all that tearful joy, 

A share of the great loss and greater gain, 
- Of aU those sad returns to learn the bane, 
To learn the blessing which doth renovate, 

Returning Phoebus here to greet again. 
Beholding, too, a God regenerate. 

LXV. 

The vray to Delphi ran beside the sea. 

Which gently rose and seemed to stroke the shrine 
Of Aphrodite in a loving glee, 

There Helen once beheld the form divine. 

And from the lightning heard a voice mahgn 
Commanding her to cross to Troy the wave : 

But now the Goddess showed a milder sign, 
And spake in tones subdued these speeches grave: 



CANTO IV. 213 

LXVI. 

"Oh Helen, I, the Goddess, must confess. 

In thy self-conquest thou hast conquered me; 
In thy great struggle felt I mine own stress, 

And now I feel that I must change with thee, 

Or yield to time and pale mortahty. 
My Trojan home doth he a ruined heap, 

Ah me! what shaU I do henceforth to be? 
My an cient throne I can no longer keep. 

Lxvn. 
"With all the Gods old Troy I have to leave, 

The spirit new into my hfe instil. 
Yet I must not me of myseK bereave, 

Love must not perish; Love I can be stiU, 

Though all transfigured with another wiU, 
Which binds the family in its sweet grace, 

Whence Love shall flow tiU it the world shaU fiU, 
And reaching up, it shall the Gods embrace." 



214 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXVIII. 

The voice had ceased, but left a vision strange, 

Upon which Helen all her journey thought; 
A God has then along with man to change, 

To be a God who man has truly taught, 

To be the spii-it into spirit caught; 
From him eternally the transformation 

Into man and world is overwTought, 
That he, the God, be one in all mutation. 

LXIX. 

So Argive Helen came through guilt to thought; 

The bottom of her mystery to find 
By looking deep into herself she sought; 

But quickly out the reaches of her mind 

The thought would fiit, and leave all dark behind. 
StiU glimpses flashed through mystic meditation, 

Of one whose love of self took in her kind, 
And saw her own in man's salvation. 



CANTO IV. 215 

LXX. 

There Helen stands amid tiie Grecian throng, 
More beautifnl she seemeth than before, 

She shows the depth which comes from struggles long, 
Not youthful bloom, which they did once adore. 
But all the wealth that flows from Time's rich store 

Seems now to lie within her graven face. 

Whose melting lines would tremble evermore, 

And tender throbs would follow every trace. 

LXXI. 

Again the Grecian heroes gather round. 

Her to behold, with worship in the heart; 
In her new look is healed the last old wound, 

Each knows himself to be of her a part; 

He, too, of destiny had felt the dart 
For sharing in the guilt of Trojan life; 

Yet was a wiser man for all the smart. 
When he to harmony returned from strife. 



216 AGA3IEMN0N'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXII. 

Then came the bard witli liai-p and tuneful voice, 
Began to touch the sure responsive string, 

Which with his note would weep or would rejoice; 
He, too, had been at Troy and felt the sting. 
He knew the triumph and the suffering; 

He, too, had thence returned, in deed and song; 
His deep-changed strain he now began to sing, 

As he stood up before her in the throng; 

LXXIII. 

"O Helen, I am old, and I am bhnd. 

My human strength, I feel, is nearly spent; 

But I have left in clearer sight my mind, 
Thee to behold still supereminent. 
And see new glories in thy beauty blent; 

Thou hast presei-ved all of thine ancient treasures. 
And to them pain and gain of life hast lent; 

Fair thou art now beyond my Grecian measures. 



CANTO IV. 217 

LXXIV. 

"I sang thj youth in wildest strains of youth, 

Upon my line I put thy precious bloon, 
Thy beauty was for me the highest tnith, 

For aught but thee the world had not the room ; 

I knew not then the silent spreading doom 
Which over thee and over me was hung, 

That we must march not to, but through tomb, 
Return alive once more, though old, yet young. 

LXXV. 

" Oh might I see again what once I saw, 

The hill and sky and sea, the Earth's sweet flower ! 

Behold thee beautiful without a flaw. 

And feel thee flash into my sight the power 
Whose spell into a moment makes the hour! 

My Grecian clime without mine eye is cold, 
It seemeth to have lost Time's fairest dower; 

Oh Helen, I am blind and I am old. 



218 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXVI. 

"But I must stop the Muse of aged regret, 
And sing what recompense the Gods bestow: 

The senses' wilder raptui'e is now let, 

The sunset calm, but not the sumise glow 
Is mine; the less I see, the more I know; 

Now might I build of thy return the lay : 
I sing no more the Battle's overthi-ow, 

The ecstasy of Joy, or Love's light play. 

Lxxvn. 
"I have returned, my song has too returned, 

In tender mood from furious Trojan vein; 
It has in thine its own new world discerned. 

And tunes to thy deep soul its inward strain, 

That the great loss doth bring the greater gain; 
And all these Grecians have returned with thee, 

Not over Troy we chant the loud refrain. 
But over our own selves the victory. 



CANTO IV. 219 

Lxxvni. 
" But there is one whom still I deeply miss, 

The one who gave herself for Hellas free, 
Whom as a Uttle maid I oft would kiss, 

When at the hearth she sat upon my knee. 

And listened rapt to childhood minstrelsy; 
The consecrated one of all, I say; 

She must return to home as well as we. 
Return to feast with us this very day." 

LXXIX. 

Out of the multitude then Helen moved, 

She felt upheld in hope by bard's strong word, 

And aU its truth in her own bosom j^roved; 
Yet she too felt the seKsame loss which stirred 
Him to the tender tuneful plaint she heard, 

TiU sense of loss turned one still cry for her 
Who always gave herself for those who erred, 

But in her own life never once did err. 



220 AGAME31N0N'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXX. 

So tender flowed the thoughts of that high dame, 
That from them fell to earth a tearful dew; 

Unto the border of the throng she came, 

TTiere she beheld a face she thought she knew, 
She stopped, astonished at the sudden view, 

As if she saw a S})irit in the air; 

And when her stricken speech she could renew, 

She spake unto that face before her there : 



"Iphigenia, my hope, hast thou I'eturned? 

And with the other Greeks art weeping here ? 
For thee alone we all just now have yearned. 

And yet my sense of sight I have to fear — 

Mine eye doth paint thy picture on its tear; 
Returned thou hast from a much further land 

Than Troy, I ween; from Hades drawest near, 
To maJie once more complete our earthly band." 



CANTO IV, 221 

LXXXII. 

"Ah yes; thou hast retm-ned whence none retui*n, 
Thou ai-t the shade my longing makes of thee; 

Thy hfe on earth to Hve I daily bui-n; 
But thou hast burst the last caj)tivity, 
And wilt no more the tomb's dark vassal be ; 

Thou hast returned, I hear thy highest call, 
Now first I feel that I am truly free. 

Thou hast returned from death, to save us all." 

LXXXIII. 

She spake the hintful words, yet scarcely durst 
Draw near and touch in love the ghostly hand; 

Yet Helen was of all the Greeks the first 
To recognize her strange in her own land, 
What lay in her return to understand; 

Of womanhood the twain most different — 

Yet in one plan complete they both were planned, 

Two lives in one great providence were blent. 



222 AGAMEMNON'S DAVGHTER. 

LXXXIV. 

The. one through deepest fall could highest rise, 

And from her stain become once more unstained; 
The other rose through perfect sacrifice, 

Without the fall she stainless aye remained; 

Yet each of them her own true good attained. 
Each only through the other grew complete, 

Both sides were one, in thought divine contained; 
Now speaks the seeming ghost in language meet: 

LXXXV. 

"I am the same and I was never slain. 

To Lower Hades I have yet to go. 
Where dark Persejohone doth hold her reign; 

Yet through one Hades I have passed in wo, 

I have come back to tell you what I know; 
In far barbaric world has been my stay. 

Where I was bome divinely long ago, 
When I at Aulis vanished out the day. 



CANTO IV. 223 

LXXXVI. 

"But tell, what sad yet happy time is this, 

Wherein ye make the noble festival ? 
I feel the sorrow mingled in the bliss, 

A mellow joy that ripens from the fall, 

A gain that doth its very pain recall; 
A melting change flows out the common heart, 

Ye Greeks must well have tasted of the gall, 
But the old wound renews a better part. 

Lxxxvn. 
" I think now of another hoUday, 

The last I saw in high Mycenae's hall. 
When Paris thither bent his doomf ul way. 

And every Grecian soul he made his thrall. 

Who in the glances of his eye might fall; 
Yet would I not a single person name, 

We all were blind, the guilt belonged to all, 
And to the Gods we have re-paid the blame. 



224 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

LXXXVIII. 

"But now we are restored to Greece at last, 
Though while we sing with joy, we have to weep, 

For with us we have brought all of the past; 
What we have won, we shall forever keep, 
And the full harvest of our sorrows reap; 

Here shall we gather on Apollo's hill. 

Where rests the sacred sun upon the steep, 

And Harmony flows down to Muses' trill." 

LXXXIX. 

From Helen, then, the people turn away. 
And Helen turns, in deep devotion's flush. 

As to some sky-descended God to pray. 
Round Iphigenia all begin to rush. 
It seems as if they will the woman crush. 

They seek to near the center of their life, 
Yet all those fervid souls with awe are hush. 

Transfigured to her spirit out of strife. 



CANTO IV. 225 

xc. 
They choose her priestess of Apollo's fane, 

The oracle she will henceforth declare; 
The double word she will to men explain, 

Of breath divine she also hath a share; 

She will inform with speech the Delphic air, 
And add thereto a measure musical; 

The true Hellenic spirit everywhere 
She feels, then speaks it clear to all. 

xci. 
In her the new Apollo finds his speech. 

Not he who once against the Greeks did fight, 
But he who will his faithful people teach 

The word of wisdom, and the deed of right; 

He hath become the God of inner light, 
Transformed from outer sheen of Eastern sun; 

When back to Hellas turned his glances bright, 
Another character divine he won. 



226 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

XCII. 

As once the self-same God in daily toil 

Served King Admetus of fair Thessaly, 
And labored like a bondman of the soil, 

Till of himself he wi'ought a being free, 

And rose therefrom into a deity; 
So now the servile Trojan time is past, 

To which the Grecian god was held in fee; 
He has with other Greeks returned at last. 

xcni. 
With him at Delphi all was else transformed, 

The very stones sprang into temples rare, 
And by a soul divine within were warmed, 

Each block sought in itself to be the fair 

White fane, which pferfect rose upon the air; 
To music sweet the- shapeless forms were trimmed," 

All marched in place out of their rocky lair, 
While lofty old Parnassus to them hymned. 



CANTO IV. 227 

XCIV. 

And helpless marble at a toucli would spring 
Into life-seeming shapes of look divine : 

The MuseSj who the sweetest strain could sing, 
Apollo who from stone began to shine, 
And chant his Delphic lay with Sisters nine— 

Forth Gods would start at Artist's strong command; 
He only smote with chisel on a hne, 

But had a heart-stroke beating from his hand. 

xcv. 
There is the transformation, too, of man 

To one who looks before and looks behind, 
Who in himself doth past and future scan, 

Pours all the vasty world into his mind, 

And cannot rest till in it truth he find; 
Who trains his body, too, until it be 

The semblance beautiful of all mankind. 
Revealed in games and dance and poesy. 



228 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER, 

XCVI. 

The Gods, too, were transformed in that great time, 
They broke the bound which everywhere had stood, 

And upwards rose into Olympian prime, 
Cast off the ugly form of idol rude, 
A\Tiich could but show the brand of finitude ; 

That was the happy hour they were set free. 

They passed from lust to love, from greed to good, 

From red revenge they tvirned to charity. 

xcvii. 
And Delphi was the lofty seat thereof. 

The bringer of the mighty transformation, 
Which came to earth and man and Gods above, 

It was of aU the world a new creation, 

AVhose fragrance sweetest fell on that Greek nation; 
The priestess noAV was borne into her place, 

To bring about the final restoration, 
Which would the Greek unite with all his race. 



CANTO IV, ' 229 

XC\^II. 

But see ! wliat new procession at the gate ? 

It moves in stately march into the fane, 
And at its head a man of royal state : 

Thoas it is, the king with all his train. 

In vestm^e tinct with many-shaded grain, 
Not in white play of Grecian fold on fold, 

AVhose simple ripple flows without a stain, 
But decked in shifting hues and shining gold. 

xcix. 
Soon in the train the swell of music rose 

In many a blending tone and winding turn. 
Which leaped up with the joys, dropped with the woes, 

As they in human feeling wordless burn, 

Or can, unsatisfied with speech, but yearn; 
Then voices rose together in a cry 

Of suffering, or song of struggle stem. 
Wove in the fancies bright of minstrelsy. " 



230 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

c. 
And miglity bards were in that lordly train, 

Who there began to chant around the king, 
In measures new, a strange barbaric strain, 

Whose ver}' words would kiss to one, and cling, 

Yet in a melody were ever vanishing 
Out of the world of sight to realms unseen, 

As they would hymn the noble offering. 
Which made tlie stream of time flow down more clean. 

CI. 

The Greeks looked on that King in wonderment, 
He was all what they were, yet he was more; 

Unto their Art, Humanity he lent, 

The deepest love he joined to widest lore, 
In him the Graces gave to worth their store, 

In him had vanished quite the gentile hate. 
Barbarian he would the Greek restore, 

The bound of nations was for him no fate. 



CANTO IV. 231 

en. 

They asked him from what region he had come, 
Whence he such wisdom in his life had learned; 

Was it the gathered treasures of his home, 
Or of some other land where peoj^le turned 
To find what knowledge sought, what virtue earned? 

He was a Greek, yet Greek beyond their ken, 
In him a brother they indeed discerned. 

Yet not to them alone, but to all men. 

cin. 
To queries yet unspoken, Thoas spake : 

" This priestess is the one who hath us taught 
And all our world the spirit's bond to break; 

She came to us a sacrifice unsought. 

When she to altar was a victim brought 
By her own people; still the Taurians say. 

An image fell from heaven, that hath wrought 
Us to herself by her long priestly stay. 



232 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CIV. 

" She lijitli the Avild barbarian conquered. 

Not by the vengeance of a Trojan war; 
The savage world she hath in tiiuinph led, 

But not enchained to a 2)iisoner's car; 

No city sacked, no town in blackened char, 
Doth mark her path like ghostly skeleton ; 

She to her soul hath changed the Near and Far, 
And freedom for a prisoned world hath won. 

cv. 
" No\v she ]iath come to save her own fair land, 

As she hath saved akeady Barbary; 
Home I have brought her with this grateful band, 

I see no more in Greek an enemy, 

The surest sign whereof is, Here am I. 
Her sacrifice henceforth the Greeks must show, 

And from revenge live unto charity. 
Which out the bosom doth the Furies throw. 



CANTO VI. 283 



*' ^Vlien Greeks have blotted out their spmt's bound, 
AMiich them from Barbary doth separate; 

They have the hoi}' medicine then found, 
Which will forever cure their sickly state, 
By taking off that outer world of Fate; 

And when the Furies out their breast they cast, 
Pursuing men no more in vengeful hate, 

The Furies too, will cease pursuit at last." 

CVII. 

At this strong regal word, forth from the train 

Orestes stepped, in presence magical; 
On Delphic sacred ground he stood again. 

From which he once had fled and leaped the wall, 

And ran with horrid cries funereal, 
By snaky Furies down the rocks pursued, 

Till he to Tauris had obeyed the call : 
Now of the monsters freed, he calml}^ stood. 



234 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CVIII. 

All Greece had seen liis spell and pitied him, 

Yet for his ransom knew not what to do; 
For Greeks themselves were prey to vengeance grim, 

As well as he, they needed pity too; 

And now, when they beheld Orestes new. 
They could not think that he was truly cured : 

Near to his tranquil countenance they drew, 
And then by word and touch themselves assured. 

cix. 
It was a time of wild astonishment; 

Orestes to their thousand queries said: 
"For wise Apollo's sister, Artemis, I went; 

I trailed the mighty sea to Tauris di-ead, 

For so the God's deep oracle I read; 
There in a fane was spoke the flaming word, 

Whose light at once me out of madness led. 
When I in my dark trance the priestess heard. 



CANTO IV. 235 

ex. 

" Fii'st from that speech myself I tnily learned, 

I rose renewed, and looked in vision free; 
My thought flashed forward, backward, in me burned, 

Till all the circling* deed I seemed to see 

Take in the past, take in futurity. 
I saw the vengeance which man wreaks on man 

Turn back on him, and the avenger be; 
His curse on others is but his own ban. 

CXI. 

" That priestess strange I found to be my sister, 

Whom I, perturbed, knew not, but deemed as dead, 
Since that dark day the Greeks at Auhs missed her 

From Dian's temple, whither she was led. 

This is the sister whom the God instead 
Of stony idol means to be adored; 

Through her the f anged Furies from me fled, 
With her restored, am I and you restored." 



236 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXII. 

His word was done, but hark ! what gnashing throng 
In maddened wind which out of Delphi blows ! 

And in that wind is heard a wailing song 
Which weaker, weaker in the distance grows, 
Yet wrathful still, as strain of dying foes. 

The pang of banishment that voice doth wring, 
And with it other voices mingle woes; 

List, list ! Again the Fates and Furies sing : 

CXTTT. 

"Farewell, oh lovely Delphi, our last seat ! 

Oh Hellas dear, our ancient home, farewell ! 
The bitter hour has come for our retreat, 

In Thoas' word we Fates have heard our knell, 

The outer world we can no more compel; 
Orestes, too, hath^gained anew his powers. 

The inner world we Furies cannot quell, 
We both are lost, man is no longer ours." 



CANTO IV. 237 

exiv. 

Behind the Delphic mountain soon they sank, 

Into its caverns deep they darkly sped; 
Castalian waters they no longer drank, 

Nor threatened happy Delphi overhead; 

The holy priestess has them banished, 
Where still by mountain dwarfs they are adored; 

For Fates and Furies are not wholly dead, 
Though Agamemnon's daughter be restored. 

cxv. 
But now in Delphi breathes another strain, 

Which rises out the rill of Castaly, 
And sings through vines and olive groves again, 

With its sweet cadence wreathes the farthest sea; 

It is the joyous strain of Muses, free 
From savage monsters, which did them affray; 

For with the priestess won they liberty, 
And thus they hymned her and themselves that day: 



238 AGAMEMNON'S DAUGHTER. 

CXVI. 

"Now hast thou made thy deed, thyself complete, 
Not till thou hast removed man's nan'ow bound, 

Can we in song thine own fair freedom greet. 
Thy brother's limits must thine own be found, 
Thou shalt not stand, till he rise from the ground; 

In freeing him, thou art thyself set free, 
Thy sacrifice hath to thyself come round, 

And through another hath perfected thee. 

cxvn. 
"We sing thine Aulian, Taurian, Delphic deed, 

Done for the sake of Greek and all mankind; 
But in the deed thou hast received the meed, 

Thou art now whole in character and mind, 

Thou and the world one harmony designed, 
Of human life thou hast well won the height, 

All in thyself, thyself in all dost find, 
And show what man will be in his own riefht. 



CANTO IV. 239 

cxvin. 
"Not thou alone, all are to be made whole, 

Each being on the earth thine image true, 
And in his own reflect thy perfect soul, 

As thou hast done, will he forever do. 

Yet to us rises a still vaster view : 
The nations shall renounce for one another, 

Therein like thee, shall win their freedom too, 
When each shall look on each as its own brother." 

cxix. 
Such strains rose out the fount where Muses dwell. 

Last herald of the newer minstrelsy; 
The perfect image floating in their well 

Did rise and walk into the mortal eye, 

Clad in the vesture Time shall on it try. 
Transfigured into music and sweet grace; 

And aU therein the mightier semblance could descry: 
The man's, the nation's, and the world's one face. 



